The way that comorbidities are being used as an out for COVID deaths is truly astonishing Depending on how you define the term, most people above 50 have at least one comorbidity!https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1300098832605286401 …
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The CDC has created a table of COVID-19 deaths by ICD-10 codes Only 6% of all COVID-19 deaths had ONLY COVID-19 listed, which is where the 6% figure comes frompic.twitter.com/IPeFLjSJ17
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But if you look at the actual table itself, it becomes immediately clear that they are not saying that COVID-19 is not the cause of death, just that these people had ANOTHER ICD-10 CODE
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(To be fair, this language is misleading, because these are not "comorbidities" in the traditional sense, but that's not precisely the same issue)
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So, for example, here are the respiratory diseases Obviously, many of these codes can be assigned BECAUSE OF COVID-19 (i.e. ARDS, respiratory failure etc)pic.twitter.com/yK9w5RFZB5
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Similarly, this bucket of ICD-10 codes includes everything from neonatal jaundice (P59.9) to chest pain, unspecified (R07.4), so again these may not really reflect "comorbidities" in the usual sensepic.twitter.com/VtYp6sLOK6
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So it's not "Only 6% of people with COVID-19 had no comorbidities!" it's "Only 6% of people had COVID-19 as their only code" It's actually quite surprising that there were any at all imo, most people get many codes for billing purposes (more $$$$)
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End of conversation
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I've tried to tell numerous people this today. But of course am economist talking out of his ass gets retweeted by been Shapiro and people believe it.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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