Dangerous Deceit: CDC Removes 24 Percent of Child COVID-19 Deaths, Thousands of Others

They lied, a nation died.

CDC Removes 24 Percent of Child COVID-19 Deaths, Thousands of Others

By Zachary Stieber, The Epoch Times, March 18, 2022

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has removed tens of thousands of deaths linked to COVID-19, including nearly a quarter of deaths it had listed in those under 18 years old.

Story continues below advertisement

The health agency quietly made the change on its data tracker website on March 15.

“Data on deaths were adjusted after resolving a coding logic error. This resulted in decreased death counts across all demographic categories,” the CDC says on the site.

The CDC relies on states and other jurisdictions to report COVID-19 deaths and acknowledges on its website that the data is not complete.

But the statistics are often cited by doctors and others when pushing for COVID-19 vaccination, including figures who believe virtually all children should be vaccinated. 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.

Before the change, the CDC listed 1,755 children as dying from COVID-19 along with approximately 851,000 others, according to Kelley Krohnert, a Georgia resident who has been tracking the updates.

The update saw the CDC cut 416 deaths among children and over 71,000 elsewhere, arriving at a total of just under 780,000.

The agency declined to provide a comment by deadline.

The CDC previously adjusted its death count in August 2021 “after the identification of a data discrepancy.”

“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.

Some journalists and doctors have been citing the tracker data while others use a tally that is managed by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has been described by the agency as more reliable.

The NCHS tally, which is compiled from death certificates, currently lists 921 deaths involving COVID-19 among children and some 966,000 deaths involving COVID-19 among other age groups.

The deaths in the tally include people who died with COVID-19 and people who died from COVID-19, a CDC spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email in January. COVID-19 was listed as the underlying cause, or the primary death cause, on about 90 percent of death certificates at the time.
Epoch Times Photo
An electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (round gold objects), which causes COVID-19, emerging from cultured cells. (NIAID)

Some of the deaths listed by the CDC appear unrelated to COVID-19. For instance, several deaths have drowning as a cause of death; several others were listed as being from a gun discharge, according to an Epoch Times review of the death codes.

For now, the update on the tracker was described as “great news” by Dr. Alasdair Munro, a clinical research fellow for pediatric infectious diseases at University Hospital Southampton, given that nearly a quarter of the pediatric COVID-19 deaths had vanished.

But Munro, writing on social media, called it “slightly worrying that this data was being used widely in the US to guide or advocate for policy.”

Some people called for the CDC to issue a public apology or at least announce such updates, similar to how some lower-level agencies have made clear lowering their death counts.

“It’s outrageous to quietly footnote such a consequential error,” Jessica Adams, a former regulatory review officer at the Food and Drug Administration, said on Twitter.

A former CDC spokesperson, though, noted the CDC website outlines that the data are estimated and 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,” Glen Nowak, the former spokesperson, who is now an associate dean for research and graduate studies at the University of Georgia, 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).”

Nowak said he wasn’t surprised the CDC did not announce the adjustment, given the disclaimers, asserting that announcements by federal agencies “are best reserved for events or developments that have or could have significant impact on government recommendations or policies.”

The Truth Must be Told

Your contribution supports independent journalism

Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more.

Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible.

Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too.

Please contribute here.

or

Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best.

Quick note: We cannot do this without your support. Fact. Our work is made possible by you and only you. We receive no grants, government handouts, or major funding. Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s essential NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America's survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Follow Pamela Geller on Gettr. I am there. click here.

Follow Pamela Geller on
Trump's social media platform, Truth Social. It's open and free.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spammy or unhelpful, click the - symbol under the comment to let us know. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

If you would like to join the conversation, but don't have an account, you can sign up for one right here.

If you are having problems leaving a comment, it's likely because you are using an ad blocker, something that break ads, of course, but also breaks the comments section of our site. If you are using an ad blocker, and would like to share your thoughts, please disable your ad blocker. We look forward to seeing your comments below.

Sponsored
Geller Report
Thanks for sharing!