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U.S. COVID-19 deaths were generally undercounted, not politically inflated.

The Claim

COVID-19 death counts in the United States during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic were systematically inflated for political reasons.

Verified by Lenz ·

The Short Version

The available evidence contradicts a nationwide campaign to inflate COVID-19 deaths for political purposes. Excess-mortality research indicates that many COVID-19 deaths went unrecognized, while documented political interference generally pushed toward lower reporting. Isolated coding errors and jurisdictional inconsistencies occurred, but they do not establish systematic inflation or the alleged political motive.

Caveats

  • Excess mortality includes some indirect pandemic deaths and is not a one-to-one measure of COVID-19 mortality.
  • Isolated coding errors or local reporting anomalies cannot establish a nationwide systematic pattern.
  • Documented political interference generally involved suppressing or delaying unfavorable COVID-19 data, not inflating deaths.

The Receipts

  1. Excess mortality in the United States during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic | Epidemiology & Infection | Cambridge Core

    cambridge.org

  2. Monthly excess mortality across counties in the United States during the Covid-19 pandemic, March 2020 to February 2022

    ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

  3. COVID-19 and excess mortality in the United States: A county-level analysis

    pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

  4. Estimating under-recognized COVID-19 deaths, United States, march 2020-may 2021 using an excess mortality modelling approach

    pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

  5. Estimating under-recognized COVID-19 deaths, United States ...

    thelancet.com

  6. COVID-19 and excess mortality in the United States: A county-level analysis | PLOS Medicine

    journals.plos.org

  7. Accounting for partisanship and politicization: Employing Benford's Law to examine misreporting of COVID-19 infection cases and deaths in the United States

    pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

  8. Manipulation of information in times of crisis: evidence from ...

    link.springer.com

  9. Applying machine learning to identify unrecognized COVID-19 deaths recorded as other causes of death in the United States | Science Advances

    science.org

  10. The CDC did not illegally change mortality count rules, inflate Covid-19 toll | Fact Check

    factcheck.afp.com

+ 29 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

COVID-19 pandemicUnited States

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