Tens of thousands of deaths linked to COVID-19 have been removed by The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, including almost 25 percent of deaths listed for those under 18 years of age.
The CDC made the change on March 15, according to the Wayback Machine’s records.
“Data on deaths were adjusted after resolving a coding logic error. This resulted in decreased death counts across all demographic categories,” the CDC wrote in a statement published on its site.
While the CDC’s site says that data is not complete, the change was made quietly. The site is an important source of information for many, including doctors and other medica professionals who cite the data when recommending vaccines for young people.
“Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, cited the tracker’s death total in November 2021 while pushing for an expert panel to advise her agency to recommend vaccination for all children 5- to 11-years-old,” the Epoch Times reports.
1,755 children were listed as having died from Covid, says Georgia resident Kelley Krohnert, who has been keepin track of CDC data.
416 deaths in that age group were removed, with 71,000 of the 851,000 deaths being cut as well, leading to a total of 780,000.
“The update is an improvement, but it’s at least the third correction to this data, and still does not solve the issue. It just highlights that people have been using a flawed source of data when discussing kids and COVID,” Krohnert told The Epoch Times in an email.
The change is not totally unexpected, though. CDC spokesperson Glen Nowak, the former spokesperson, who is now an associate dean for research and graduate studies at the University of Georgia, noted that the CDC website data through some estimates and are subject to change.
“There is much complexity involved in all systems that are trying to track and summarize illness and death data, including differences in how data are collected and reported, completeness and accuracy of data, how timely data is entered into data collection systems and reported to CDC, and in the assumptions made, and procedures used to determine whether COVID-19 was the primary cause of death, a contributing cause of death, or not likely a contributing factor in someone’s death,” Nowak told The Epoch Times in an email.
“It is thus not surprising that adjustments or revisions happen, including as a result of coding-related issues (e.g., recognizing, as more cases and information are provided, that a better way to enter, analyze, and/or interpret the data existed).”
