Last Updated on January 18, 2022 by Neelam Singh
Quick Take
After the release of 2020 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) database on Covid-19 fatalities, a number of social media users have claimed that a small percentage of people have died of Covid-19 alone while others have died of different causes. We fact-checked and found the claim to be False.
The Claim
A social media user claims, “According to the CDC, only 50,000 people died from COVID-ONLY as opposed to the 836,000 figure I need new conspiracy theories, all my old ones became FACTS”.
Some other social media users write, “It’s over!! CDC: 94% of covid deaths came from people with 2 to 3 comorbidities. 75% came from people with atleast 4 comorbidities. Since the pandemic over 836,000 US deaths have been reported. 6% of that is about 50,000. 50,000 have died from Covid only. A pandemic was it not”.
“Warning: I’m about to go on a bit of a rant. So, the CDC has updated the numbers and now says only 6% of the “Covid deaths” died of Covid alone. That’s about 50,000. They also now admit therapeutics work. How many lives could have been saved over the past 2 years? For this highly”.
“Since the plandemic and according to the CDC, only 50,000 people died from COVID-ONLY! 75% came from people with atleast 4 comorbidities. 836k US deaths have been reported. 6% of that is about 50,000. Only 50k have died with Covid only!”.
The posts can be seen here, here, here, and here.
Fact Check
What is comorbidity?
Comorbidity means co-occurrence of two or more diseases or illnesses at the same time.
Are comorbid people more affected by Covid-19?
It seems so. The available published research has shown that people with comorbidities are at a greater risk of Covid-19. But this does not mean that comorbidity is the only reason for Covid-19 deaths.
That being the case, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released specific guidelines on Covid-19 precautions for people with diseases and disorders. The guidelines also cover people with weak immune systems due to a genetic defect or using immune weakening medicines.
Did CDC say only 6% people die due to Covid-19?
No. The data has been misinterpreted by the social media users.
The confusion was about death certificates that contain ‘only’ COVID-19 as a reason. The percentage does not include cases in which health conditions are caused by the virus itself. Also, comorbidity can increase the risk of Covid-19 among certain cases, comorbidity cannot necessarily become the only cause of death.
The database was prepared by counting the already submitted death certificates. The database can be seen here.
Ideally, a death certificate must show the chain of events causing ultimately death.
The CDC has released guidelines on preparing certificates considering all possible chain of events that can be worsened by Covid-19 to cause deaths. The guidelines cover all such cases in which SARS CoV-2 was the underlying cause and categorise them to be certified as death due to Covid-19.
More information on reporting Covid-19 deaths can be found here and here.
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