Is the lack of testing nationwide actually intentional to keep the official death toll low?

[LonePirate]

I know this sounds conspiratorial and maybe it is with this corrupt and evil administration, but due to the lack of available testing nationwide, was this intentionally done by 45 and his crew in order to keep the death toll down? If a dead victim lacks a COVID-19 test, is the death attributed to the virus or to some other ailment or category?

I am guessing this won’t happen in states with a Democratic governor. However in states such as Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Texas, etc. nothing would surprise me, given how states like Ohio are suppressing unemployment numbers in order to make 45 look good (or less worse, actually).

This country is so fucked.

[rampartc]

1. yes

[2naSalit]

2. Most likely but

I think it was an after thought because I suspect he really let it happen to punish us for his impeachment. He has a long grudge to hold with that one and since it was so big, he has to match the level of damage he perceives he experienced.

It's messed up but I am not willing to overlook any possibility with this crowd.

ETA: He only gave a shit when the stock market started crashing.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. If that's their thinking, they don't understand numbers.

If you only test the very sick, you're going to have a very high death rate. If you test a lot more people, you get a more realistic sense of 1. how widespread it is and 2. how deadly it is.

Example. 100 people show symptoms. You test all of them. They all have the virus. 40 die. 40% fatality rate.

Instead, you test 10,000 people, including those same 100 who show symptoms. 3,000 test positive. 40 die. That's a 1.3% death rate of all who test positive.

While this is not a very nice virus, it is not as apocalyptic as people think. The vast majority of us are going to come out fine.

I know, that's not a very popular stand here.

[onenote]

4. No. It's due to a lack of preparedness. In other words, incompetence.

[pnwmom]

13. Of course it was. Notice that the states that aren't testing much are RED states?

And remember when he didn't want the cruise ship to dock, and admitted it was because he didn't want the number of US cases to rise?

[greyl]

5. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" would have been

my response a few long years ago. But this greedy, cheating, tax-money-funneling corporate GOP with its selfish, malignantly narcissistic, wacky, TrumpChrist-brand mascot has no moral bottom.

footnote:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/12/30/not-malice/

[budkin]

6. Absolutely

Is there any other reason?

[Ms. Toad]

7. Ohio has been given virtually no tests.

Can't stand DeWine on much of anything else, but he has been very proactive on this - and very transparent. The administration is not happy about being told to limit unemployment numbers to once a week - they made a point more than once about being ordered to limit announcements to once a week, and about it conflicting with their promise to Ohio residents to be transparent. They are not doing it to make trump look good, they are doing it becuase they were ordered to do so by the relevant government entity. Attack trump and his crew for ordering, not states that comply wtih the law.

As to deaths, the local health departments are struggling with that. (My spouse is on the local board of health - so you're slamming her there.) There aren't enough tests to make the determination of what every person who died had; what tests there are have to be saved for the individuals for whom knowing they are positive will make a difference in survival. It is that bad.

We need to leave partisan politics outside the door. There are governors who are handling this badly - many of whom are Republcan. feel free to slam them - but do it because they (individually) are handling it badly - not because of their party affiliation.

[pnwmom]

15. Right. And it's very unusual to do autopsies on very old people who die of natural causes, right?

We've never had one on one of our older relatives, no matter what natural cause it was.

[Tipperary]

8. I think it is a combination of incompetence and conspiracy.

This administrative wants no one to know the truth - about either.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

9. Trump does not want to spend the money we should be spending and...

blow up his big tax cut and GOP plans to destroy the Federal Government.

That plus his known, well documented narcissistic aversion to be seen as a loser.

I would dare any GOP politician right now to even mention the possibility of a tax hike on the wealthy to save the nation. I guess they fear Grover Norquist will drop by an spank their little ass.

KY......

[greenjar_01]

10. A doctor does not need a test to write "COVID-19" as a cause of death

When a patient presents with COVID-19 symptoms and dies from acute respiratory failure, the attending physician is going to list COVID-19 as a cause of death. You don't need a positive test result for that.

The lack of testing is due to poor planning, contempt for infrastructural spending, lack of resources, and general incompetence, just as onenote upthread has stated (God help me for agreeing with that guy!).

"45 and his creew" can't keep "the death toll down." It doesn't work that way.

[DeminPennswoods]

14. Pretty much agree

although I think a death certificate would just say repiratory failure, but I know in my state, the death certificate asks for the cascading causes so cause of death would be something like acute respiratory failure, caused by pnemonia caused by flu/copd/sars2, etc.

[pnwmom]

16. No, all doctors wouldn't do that. Why would you even think that? We know that

Last edited Thu Mar 26, 2020, 05:31 AM - Edit history (4)

many doctors aren't even diagnosing people with it in the first place -- they're withholding tests in many states to all but hospitalized patients. So why would they write COVID 19 on a death certificate when they don't know what it was?

I think they're mostly writing "pneumonia," because it does cause pneumonia. Or they're writing "heart failure" or "kidney failiure" or "sepsis," depending on what finally pushed the patient over the edge.

But I know two different people who were officially notified that they were exposed to coronavirus, got sick, and requested testing -- and were denied it because they weren't sick enough. And one of them wasn't even put in quarantine.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nidhiprakash/coronavirus-update-dead-covid19-doctors-hospitals?fbclid=IwAR3MU4qI4CdIstdfUi4mfxpZQ9XfR6jwQdfYjCWSpeXBbqtE6QDT-o4sERA

Doctors And Nurses Say More People Are Dying Of COVID-19 In The US Than We Know

“The numbers are grossly under-reported. I know for a fact that we’ve had three deaths in one county where only one is listed on the website,” one California ER doctor told BuzzFeed News.

Medical professionals around the US told BuzzFeed News that the official numbers of people who have died of COVID-19 are not consistent with the number of deaths they’re seeing on the front lines.

In some cases, it’s a lag in reporting, caused by delays and possible breakdowns in logging positive tests and making them public. In other, more troubling, cases, medical experts told BuzzFeed News they think it’s because people are not being tested before or after they die.

SNIP

And two of the hardest-hit areas in the nation — New York City and Los Angeles County — released guidance earlier this week encouraging doctors not to test patients unless they think the test will significantly change their course of treatment. That means that potentially more people in both places could be admitted to hospitals with severe respiratory symptoms and recover — or die — and not be registered as a coronavirus case.

SNIP

[uponit7771]

11. ***HE SAID IT !!! *** He said it in regards to the cruise liner he didn't want numbers to go up