The New York Times has recently acknowledged, in a somewhat inconspicuous manner, that the Covid-19 death toll was exaggerated by approximately one-third.
This admission was tucked away in the 17th paragraph of a newsletter titled “A Positive COVID Milestone” penned by David Leonhardt, a former Washington bureau chief for the publication.
“The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had [the] virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other CDC data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.”
Leonhardt added, “Almost a year ago, President Biden angered some public health experts when he declared, ‘The pandemic is over.’ He may have been premature to make that declaration. But the excess-deaths milestone suggests that it’s true now: The pandemic is finally over.”
Here's the key excerpt from yesterday's New York Times article acknowledging that government "COVID death" statistics are unreliable. pic.twitter.com/OWKaFzFmRY
— Jim Walsh (@JimWalshLD19) July 18, 2023
When former President Donald Trump raised the suggestion that the COVID death toll might have been exaggerated, The Times responded by stating, “Mr. Trump told reporters that he accepted the current death toll, but that the figures could be ‘lower than’ the official count, which now totals nearly 95,000.”
However, many statisticians and public health experts disagreed with his statement, asserting that the actual death toll is probably much higher than what has been publicly reported. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, informed lawmakers that the overall toll was likely underestimated, though he couldn’t specify the exact percentage, saying, “I don’t know exactly what percent higher but almost certainly it is higher.”
CNN said at the time, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doubled down against rumors — spread mostly on social media — suggesting that coronavirus deaths have been greatly exaggerated.”
The Guardian cited Fauci as claiming that “…baseless ‘conspiracy theories’ are swirling around the coronavirus crisis following claims that America’s official death toll from Covid-19 has been overstated.”
