All Episodes
Previous Next
March 29, 2022 - Epoch Times
19:47
CDC Quietly Removes 24% Of Virus Deaths in Children From Data, Blames "Coding Logic Error"
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This is your daily Facts Matter Update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times.
And now let's begin today's discussion by talking about the CDC, which, just a few days ago, they made, you can say, a very significant change to the data that they've been reporting in regards to COVID. What kind of change?
Well, last week, on their official website, the CDC very quietly And by quietly, well, I do mean really, really quietly.
Because if you were not dialed in, if you were not keeping a close watch on their data tracking website, well, you would have likely not even noticed it at all.
It was that quiet.
And the best part, at least in my opinion, is that after this discrepancy was discovered, the CDC put out a statement saying that the reason that they had to quietly scrub tens of thousands of deaths from the official tally was due to a coding error.
Here's specifically what they wrote, quote, "Data on deaths were adjusted after resolving a coding logic error.
This resulted in decreased death counts across all demographic categories." Now let's go through the actual change in terms of numbers.
Prior to March 15th, meaning prior to this alteration, the CDC listed 1,755 children as having died from COVID, as well as approximately 851,000 adults.
After the change was made on March the 15th, the number of children's deaths was cut by 24%, down to 1,339, whereas the number of deaths among adults was cut by about 8.3%, and it was brought down to approximately 779,000.
That means, in total, overnight, this change by the CDC wiped out about 72,277 deaths from their official tally.
Which is very cool, because you might have assumed that only people like biologists, scientists, as well as medical doctors could defeat COVID. But it looks like statisticians could be utilized as well.
Now, besides placing the blame on the coding error, we here at the Epoch Times, we also reached out to the CDC in order to get a comment on how this could have happened, and one of their spokespeople got back to us saying this via email.
Quote, The adjustment was made because CDC's algorithm was accidentally counting deaths that were not COVID-19 related.
Our rigorous quality control measures help us identify when new information changes our understanding of data that has been previously reported.
Now, I will mention that separately, we here at the Epoch Times, we have officially filed a Freedom of Information Act request against the CDC, asking them to hand over all of their internal communications regarding this change.
But as of yet, we have yet to receive any of that.
As soon as we do, I will let you know right away.
Or, at the very least, I will let you know as long as you are subscribed to this channel.
That way, you can get updates on all of our ongoing investigations for as long as YouTube allows us the great privilege of being on their platform.
Now, there is something regarding this change over at the CDC that I believe is truly worth highlighting.
And that point was articulated fairly well by Dr.
Alice Dara-Monroe, who is a clinical research fellow for pediatric infectious diseases over at the University Hospital in Southampton.
And here's specifically what he wrote over on Twitter.
It's slightly worrying that this data was being used widely in the U.S. to guide or advocate for policy.
And that is, at least in my opinion, exactly true.
Because although it's great that these numbers have been lowered in order to correct the error, in the meantime, they have been used to both guide public opinion as well as public policy.
That's because the numbers from this online data tracking tool, they were cited widely across media outlets all across this country, as well as by public experts like Dr.
Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, in order to push for things like vaccine as well as mask mandates.
Here's an example.
When this article was first published in The Guardian, the headline said, quote, A third of all U.S. child COVID deaths occurred during Omicron's surge.
Then the article subhead, it said this, quote, However, after the CDC tweaked their data, this article, it had to be quietly amended, and now it says this, quote, Which, of course, you can make the argument is still significant.
You can still use that to justify an argument for pushing more mandates, but that's not the point.
The point is that public policy, the debate surrounding public policy, it should be based on accurate data.
If the well that we all drink at is poison, meaning that if the actual facts and the actual data that we're using in our public debates is not solid, well then what's even the point of having those debates?
Because we're all just guessing at what the underlying reality is and then just basing our guesses on top of more guesses.
And the problem has not gone away since March the 15th when the CDC made that change.
Meaning, that even though the CDC has now made the change and corrected the supposed coding error, there are still very obvious issues with their online data tracker.
As just one example, right now when you go on over to the data tracker, it shows 407 deaths for those who are aged between 0 and 4.
But if you break those deaths down by sex and age, it shows only 159 deaths in this age group.
And so obviously there are still errors in this data.
Perhaps there are more coding errors, which really begs the question of what the actual numbers are.
And that question, it's compounded even further by the fact that besides this data tracking tool, there are two other places that these COVID death numbers are coming from before showing up on our nightly news.
And if that all sounds confusing, let me break it down for you.
Here are the three main sources for COVID death numbers that you typically see on the news, and all three of them come from the CDC. The first one is the CDC's Data Tracking Online tool.
This is the one that we've been discussing so far.
This is the one with the supposed coding error.
And according to the CDC's website, the data in this particular tracking tool, it's compiled by pulling the data from all the different states and pulling them together.
However, the data is not really verified, and so even without the coding errors, it's not so accurate.
Then the second source of data, it comes from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, otherwise known as the NCHS.
And this measure, which is totally separate from the online tracking tool, it compiled the actual death certificates wherein COVID was listed as either underlying or a contributing cause of death.
And then the third source of these numbers comes from the CDC's WONDER system, The data in this WONDER system is, again, separate from the previous two measurements that we mentioned.
And according to their website, the numbers in the WONDER system, they are compiled from data which is provided by the, quote, 57 vital statistics jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program.
And so, how many pediatric COVID deaths have occurred in this country depends largely on which system you're looking at.
As an example of what I mean by that, here's a spreadsheet to explain it.
On March 15th, according to the CDC's data tracker, there were 1,755 COVID deaths for those under the age of 18.
However, on the very next day, because of their 24% adjustment, they changed that number to 1,339.
However, if you looked at the NCHS system on that very same day, the number of pediatric COVID deaths was actually 921, which is approximately 25% lower than the other system even after the adjustment.
In terms of the third tracking system, the Wunder system, it also doesn't appear to be wholly accurate.
Because we here at the Epoch Times, we did a search of some of the data within the Wunder system, and we found that pediatric deaths which were officially attributed to COVID-19 They included cases where, for instance, drowning or drug use was listed as the primary cause of death.
Which, I mean, sure, if you're drowning, I'm sure having COVID doesn't help, but I would be hard-pressed to say that death can be attributed to COVID in any meaningful sense.
Regardless, though, the point of our discussion is not to place blame on the CDC necessarily.
I mean, collecting data from the entire country, especially a country as large as America, is a difficult task.
However, I believe that we as the people, we as the citizens of this country, have a right to know where this data is actually coming from and what it actually means.
If you'd like to read more about this data adjustment, or if you'd like to dig through any of those three systems that I mentioned earlier, I'll throw the links to all of them into the description box below this video for you to check out, and all I ask in return is that you take a super quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
Now, since we're discussing these COVID death numbers, I'd like to discuss something very related, which is how a group of supposed health experts have seemingly taken over the responsibilities that were given by the U.S. Constitution to our elected representatives.
Sir, what's this?
Well, that's a great question, Roman.
And it is today's sponsor, which is an awesome messaging and email service provider called Secure.
And it's awesome if you're the type of person that actually cares about their privacy.
Because, I mean, it's no big secret that these big tech companies are mining and remining our data all the time.
In fact, in the year 2020, it was found that over 155 million Americans, likely including you and me, have suffered some form of data breach.
And by the way, that's only what's publicly known.
However, what's happened in the past?
Well, that can stay in the past because with Secure, Your data and your messages can remain private.
And that's because Secure has all of their data centers located over in Switzerland rather than in the U.S. or in China.
And the reason that's so important is that Switzerland has some of the strictest data privacy laws in the entire world, and they are not subject to the Intrusive Cloud Act.
And if you want to know what the Cloud Act is, head on over to secure.com.
And watch their video on the homepage or on the video tutorials page, which is under their support section.
Now, the thing that I personally love the most about the secure app is the privacy aspect of it.
They don't mind my data.
They don't mind my phone number.
They don't mind the phone numbers or data of my friends and family who I chat with.
But best of all is that if your friends and family don't actually use this, use the secure app themselves, it doesn't matter because the way that it works is that when you use their secure send email technology, All of your emails and your messages route to Switzerland and then the recipient can reply using their secure reply technology.
And so everything remains private no matter what.
And the same actually goes for their messaging app as well.
And they're always coming up with new features.
In fact, the most recent one they told me about, they sent me an email here, was that they're coming up with a new feature called text to chat by invite.
So they're an innovative company and they really do care about your privacy.
And so what they're doing doesn't work with your existing big tech email account.
So check them out.
You can head on over to secure.com.
I'll throw the link into the description box below.
And when you use promo code Roman, you can get 25% off.
And the rates are not even that expensive to start with, by the way.
It's only $5 for the messenger and $10 for the email and messenger combo.
And they even offer a seven-day free trial.
So head on over to their website.
Again, it'll be linked in the description box below.
Use promo code Roman to save some money.
And now Roman in the studio, back to you.
Well, I was down in Florida about two weeks ago.
I took the unique opportunity to sit down and speak with Mr.
Matthew Spaulding.
You might recognize him if you watch any of the videos from Hillsdale College.
He's a professor of constitutional government, and we discuss the strange reality that we currently find ourselves in, one in which so-called health experts are now, at the very least seemingly, no longer just advising our representatives, but perhaps they are even running the show.
Take a listen.
So, I'm with Hillsdale College.
We have a Washington, D.C. campus.
The main college is in Michigan.
But we have a graduate school in D.C. I'm a dean of that.
I'm also vice president of the college.
And I took leave at the end of last year, went over and was the executive director of the 1776 Commission and put together the 1776 report, which I think some people have taken a look at.
But now I'm back at Hillsdale at my normal day job because I had been hired by one president and five weeks later we put out the report and I was immediately fired by the new president, Biden.
One of his first executive orders was to abolish the 1776 Commission.
Because it really could not exist, if you will, with the argument it made, which was about the Declaration of Independence in 1776, when they are advancing a federal policy having to do with equity, which is closer to the 1619 Project's arguments.
These two things in their mind were contradictory, which I actually agree with that point, but because they wanted to go one way, they had to destroy the other one.
There's a lot to unpack there, but let me start with this.
Maybe you can lay it out to the audience.
What is the significance of the difference between the 1776 project and studying the founding of this country from that perspective versus studying it from the perspective of it started in 1619 with the arrival of the first slaves?
A lot to unpack there, too.
When the 1776 report was originally taken down for the website and the commission was abolished, and the New York Times and all the big papers attacked it as being racist, At first I was quite upset about that.
No one likes being called a racist.
But it took me a while to realize they hadn't even read the report.
It was pretty clear from their comments.
And this had nothing to do with history.
That's the first thing I would advise to anybody who's following this debate.
This is not a mere debate about different views of history and what actually happened.
It has nothing to do with that at all.
This is about looking backwards in history with ideology in mind.
The objective of the 1619 Project is not about establishing a view of history at all.
It's about fighting a current battle.
And that current battle has to do with advancing liberalism and progressivism and this kind of cultural Marxism in America.
And in order to do that, they want to undermine the foundations of the American Republic.
And in order to do that, they've gone after what is admittedly the background of slavery, the soft spot, if you will, the great sin of the country, They've gone after that as a way to attack it.
And so the juxtaposition here couldn't be clear in the sense that what the 1776 report, and I think what good history does, is presents those arguments, warts and all, but through that, despite the flaws, it emphasizes the core principles.
And what America about is a set of principles best laid out in the Declaration of Independence.
All men are created equal.
That's something said to be self-evident according to the laws of nature and nature's God.
That's the essence of what it means to be human.
That principle then gives rise to our politics, which includes slavery, other flaws, but also these great accomplishments, building this great nation, a great economy, a land of opportunity where anybody can flourish.
And it included the abolition of slavery.
But what the 1619 Project and its ilk, which goes by many names, critical race theory, identity politics, kind of the woke movement, movement broadly defined if you will, they don't care about that.
All they want to see is the problems, the warts, if you will, ignoring the principles because their objective is different.
It's not to understand history.
It's not to try to learn what those documents say, what the Constitution is about, what the Declaration is about behind that.
It's to fight a battle right now which demands that they take down the country because they want to replace it with something else.
That's what wokeism is all about, being awakened to this new transformation.
And that, broadly speaking, is what is at stake.
Does that tie in?
So it seems like the Constitution and the American system in general are under attack from many different ways.
What you just described with the 1619 Project, attacking the fundamentals, the foundations of this country and everything it's built upon, is that sort of the same method of attack or is that sort of adjacent to what has happened over the past, well, accelerated over the past, let's say, five years with these bureaucrats That's
a great question, too.
I think it's important to understand that all these things are connected.
Very few things, especially in politics, happen coincidentally.
They usually grow out of something else and they all are in line with each other.
What strikes me is, in looking around at what's going on today, you mentioned about how science is becoming increasingly regulatory through mandates.
I live in Virginia, and in Loudoun County, parents were going and protesting at school board meetings.
We were talking earlier about how there was in Canada and now in the United States, there's this trucker convoy.
Even in Ukraine, where the Ukraine people seem to be wanting to defend themselves against tyranny being invaded, all these things are very broadly interconnected in the sense that there's something about the human person and an individual human soul that bristles at being ruled.
And I think that's something, and that's the inherent idea that the principle of what America is about.
To say that all men are created equal is to say that we are equally able to rule ourselves.
Government is based on consent.
None is born, as Jefferson famously used this quote, none is born with a saddle on their backs and none is born booted and spurred, ready to ride.
There's something about human nature that's deeply embedded and I think we're seeing it come out in all these ways.
That's the old world, if you will.
The new worldview is the opposite, which is that what man is for is not to live out their nature, not to flourish, not to become fully human.
What man is for is to be organized, to be changed and transformed, to be created, to be ruled.
And we're just seeing it in different manifestations.
Science wants to rule.
A government wants to rule.
A foreign dictator wants to rule.
A government wants to regulate all the way down to local school boards and wants to not have parents have a role in the education of their children.
And here's why I'm actually optimistic about what's going on.
It seems like everything is breaking out all around us.
But what we're seeing is that human nature still persists.
It's still deeply embedded.
And for all of its great successes, modern liberalism, progressism, cultural Marxism, call it what you will, has never succeeded in expunging that.
This is the great failure of the Soviet Union.
It's the great failure of all the great experiments in creating the new Soviet man or Nazism.
And it'll be the great failure of progressivism and cultural Marxism here because you can't destroy that.
And I think what we're seeing is actual practical evidence all around us that the founders Who believed in human nature, but also Western civilization, which is grounded on human nature and the laws of nature and nature's God, the traditions of philosophy, but also of Christianity and revelation.
It turns out that that's all true.
That's where the truth is grounded, and we keep coming back to that, and we see it all around us.
And so, yes, we're getting back to a much more fundamental debate about all these things.
We're going through trying times, but But there's a sense of hope there, and I think we should proceed in seeing these opportunities where they come up for what they are, which is very promising in a self-governing republic that's trying to recover and revive itself.
You see, what you did there is very interesting, because I thought you were going down a very dark place, right?
The full interview.
If you'd like to watch that interview in its entirety, as well as a plethora of other phenomenal content, you can do so over on Epic TV, which is our awesome no-censorship video platform.
I'll throw a link to Epic TV. It'll be down there in the description box below this video.
And if you use promo code Roman, if you click on that link and use promo code Roman, you can get a 14-day free trial.
You can watch all the phenomenal content on Epic TV. You don't have to pay a penny.
And then after two weeks, you can decide if you'd like to continue your subscription.
Again, the link will be down there in the description box below.
And until next time, I'm your host, Roman, from The Epoch Times.
▲
Export Selection