Washington State’s COVID-19 Death Count Is Inflated: Death Certificate Analysis

December 17, 2020

A death certificate analysis shows that the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in Washington state remains inflated, according to a new investigation.

The Freedom Foundation, a free-market think tank, published research in May claiming the COVID-19 death total from the state’s Department of Health was inflated by as much as 13 percent by counting every person who tested positive for the disease, even if the death wasn’t caused by it.

State officials subsequently admitted that some deaths reported as caused by COVID-19 ended up not being caused by the disease.

A handful of deaths were actually from gunshot wounds, Katie Hutchinson, health statistics manager at the Washington State Department of Health (DOH), told reporters in a phone briefing. Officials were looking into 3,000 certificates that indicated symptoms similar to COVID-19 but were unclear as to whether COVID-19 caused the death.

An internal email (pdf) also revealed Hutchinson saying that “in theory,” the Freedom Foundation report author was “correct” in saying a person who tested positive for COVID-19 and died in a car accident a month later would be counted as a COVID-19 death.

About one month later, on June 17, health officials reported a change in counting COVID-19 deaths. “Until now, when a death is reported as a COVID-19 death, it is because the person who passed away also tested positive for COVID-19. However, this method doesn’t just reflect the deaths of people whose deaths were caused by COVID-19; it can include someone who may have died of other causes,” the department said in a press release.

But a new analysis by the Freedom Foundation shows that Washington health officials are still over-reporting COVID-19 deaths, potentially by hundreds of deaths.
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