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March 29, 2022 - Epoch Times
17:13
Another 15% of Deaths REMOVED From State Database Due to ‘Significant Overcount’ By Officials
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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 ever-changing COVID death numbers.
Now, in yesterday's episode, we have already discussed how the CDC very, very quietly removed about 72,000 deaths from their official COVID death tracking website, supposedly due to a programming error.
However, it's worth noting that this type of COVID death number reduction is not limited to only the CDC.
Case in point, you have the state of Massachusetts, whose public health department recently announced that they will be lowering their official COVID death toll by about 15% in order to reduce what they refer to as a significant overcount of the COVID deaths in their state.
And just like that...
What was once regarded as a conspiracy theory just last year is now literally front-page news.
Because think about it for a moment.
In the years 2020 and 2021, if you even floated the idea publicly that these COVID death numbers were somehow inflated, you would be definitely kicked off the airwaves, and potentially you would even have your social media accounts taken away.
And yet now, here it is in black ink and white paper, a statement from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health saying exactly that.
Here's specifically what they wrote in this Department of Public Health statement, which, by the way, was released on March 10th.
Quote, beginning on Monday, March the 14th, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health will update the criteria used for identifying COVID-19 deaths to align with guidance from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.
Currently, the COVID death definition includes anyone who has COVID listed as a cause of death under death certificate and any individual who has had a COVID-19 diagnosis within 60 days but does not have COVID listed as a cause of death under death certificate.
The updated definition reduces this time frame from 60 days to 30 days for individuals without a COVID diagnosis under death certificate.
Now, as they alluded to in the statement, this updated change is actually following the recommendation which was issued by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists in order to create a more standardized approach for the different states across the entire country to count their COVID deaths.
Because even to this very day, different states define differently what exactly counts as a COVID death.
And to that end, here's what Dr.
Catherine Brown, who's actually the top epidemiologist within the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, here's what she said as a part of the statement regarding this new change.
We are adopting the new definition because we support the need to standardize the way COVID-19 associated deaths are counted.
Prior to this CSTE definition, which stands for the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists definition, states did not have a nationally recommended definition for COVID-19 deaths and, as such, have been using a variety of processes and definitions to count their deaths.
In Massachusetts, our definition has consistently been broader than most other states.
After a deep dive into our data and reviewing thousands of death certificates, we recognize that this updated definition gives us a truer picture of mortality associated with COVID-19.
And so, what this means in practice is that prior to this change, if let's say you were fixing the roof on your home, but then you slipped and fell to your death, you would have been marked in the state directory as having died from COVID if you had tested positive within the last 60 days.
However, with this new change now in place, if you fall off the roof from your home and you died today, well, you would be registered as a COVID death only if you tested positive for COVID within the last month.
And after they made this adjustment, the state's Department of Health, they went back through their data, and they found that for one, a total of 4,081 deaths, which were previously counted as being associated with COVID, will now be removed from the state's tally.
However, they also did a manual review of the death certificates in the state, and they found that there were approximately 400 deaths which were not previously marked as COVID, but that should have been.
And therefore, after they removed the 4,081 deaths and then added in the 400 deaths, the overall COVID death count within the state of Massachusetts declined by 3,700.
And so, if you were looking at a graph, on March the 9th, Massachusetts reportedly had 23,732 COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic.
But then on March the 14th, which is when the department started using their new criteria, that number dropped down to a very even 20,000 deaths.
Which is approximately a 15% reduction in the total number of COVID deaths.
And by the way, just as a super small aside, speaking of 15%, here's a chart of our latest episode, and it shows that about 15% of the people who watch Facts Matter were not subscribed to the channel.
And so, if that includes you, consider smashing, smashing, smashing that subscribe button so that you can get honest news injected directly into your YouTube feed as long as this platform allows for it.
Now, back to the topic of Massachusetts.
As I mentioned in that earlier example, with the person who fell off his roof, this change in metrics does not fully address the fundamental issue, which is how to distinguish between people who died of COVID versus people who died with COVID. Because reducing the time frame from 60 days down to 30 days, well, it can help to clean up the data, but it still doesn't rule out the deaths of people who happen to just die from COVID shortly after a positive diagnosis.
Which is a reality that was acknowledged by Mr.
Nicholas Menzies, who is an associate professor of global health over at Harvard, and he was actually quoted in this statement from the Department of Public Health as saying this, quote, It is important to understand that we cannot identify all COVID-19 deaths with 100% accuracy.
The revised definition for COVID-19 deaths is a reasonable balance between sensitivity and specificity and will make it easier to compare Massachusetts' death data with data from other jurisdictions.
Now, I believe it's worth noting that this type of significant over-counting does not only apply to deaths, and it most certainly does not only apply to the state of Massachusetts.
And so, for instance, last year there were multiple studies which, after combing through the data, they concluded that the CDC's COVID hospitalization numbers might be significantly inflated as well because they were not properly differentiating between hospitalizations caused by COVID versus hospitalizations associated with COVID. Meaning that if you came in for a broken ankle, and then since everyone at the hospital is being tested for COVID, you happen to test positive for COVID, well, it would have marked you in the national statistics as being a COVID hospitalization.
And this seemed to inflate the numbers significantly.
For instance...
Earlier this year, right here in the great state of New York, Governor Kathy Hochul, she requested that all hospitals within the state, they have to begin to report their COVID hospitalization numbers with a breakdown for those who are hospitalized because of COVID versus those who came into the hospital and happened to test positive for COVID. And wouldn't you believe it, after just two days of changing that metric, the state of New York reported that about 40% of the people who were hospitalized were actually hospitalized for non-COVID-related reasons.
Again, something that would have branded you as a conspiracy theorist just last year is now a well-established fact.
And as I have mentioned on many, many, many previous episodes, it's very likely facts like these that are having the public trust the CDC less and less.
In fact, in a recent poll, it showed that only 44% of Americans trust what the CDC has said about COVID. And that survey, by the way, it was taken back in January, and so I can only imagine what the numbers are now.
Regardless, last week I published an awesome special episode wherein I interviewed Dr.
Peter Mercullo, and we discussed how the CDC, as well as other public health institutions, can actually reclaim the public's trust.
If you want to check out that awesome interview, you can find it over on Epic TV, which is our no censorship video platform.
I'll throw a link to the interview with Dr.
Peter Mercullo, as well as the other links, including this link.
To the statement from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, it'll all be down in the description box below this video.
And all I ask in return is that you take a super quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button so the YouTube algorithm will be forced to share this video out to ever more people.
Now, before we move on over and discuss the financial cancel culture that's plaguing America, well, here's a quick word from the sponsor of today's episode.
That's right.
Our sponsor for today's episode is a phenomenal organization that not only advocates for conservative values, but also provides awesome membership benefits to over 2 million people across the entire country.
I am, of course, talking about AMAC, or the Association for Mature American Citizens.
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Now, while I was down in Florida, I took the unique opportunity to speak with the co-founders of GiveSendGo, which is the crowdfunding platform that was used by the Canadian truckers to raise millions of dollars after they were kicked off of GoFundMe.
And we discussed the current state of the financial cancel culture that we all find ourselves in, as well as how we can fight back.
Take a listen.
Let's now talk about the Canadian Trucker Convoy.
So how did that all play out?
Can you walk us through?
Was it that there were two parallel fundraisers, one on your platform, one on GoFundMe, or was it that when one shut down, the other started up?
How did that play out?
Yes, it's an incredible story to us.
So a adopted trucker campaign started on Give, Send, Go for the Trucker Convoy.
They started raising money immediately.
They started, it was going great.
Their friends, the Freedom Convoy 2022, started a campaign at the same time on GoFundMe.
GoFundMe, they start raising money very quickly.
Over three weeks, raised almost eight million Canadian dollars, right?
So they start raising money quickly.
Everybody's going, but why are you using GoFundMe?
They're going to shut you down.
And sure enough, what do we see play out?
GoFundMe shuts them down and says, we don't agree with you.
Like, you're breaking our terms of service.
We're going to shut you down.
Everybody's like, we told you.
You should have used Give, Send, Go.
Your friend over here is using Give, Send, Go and is raising money and it's getting to him.
And so they came to Gifts and Go, started a campaign, and immediately our site was hacked, or DDoS attacked.
So for that first 24 hours, we had a hard time even getting the site up because people were attacking, overloading our database.
And yet the next morning, and I say, not when we woke up, because we never slept, we were trying to get the site working properly.
The next morning, we looked, and that campaign had raised over $2 million in 24 hours on Give, Send, Go.
And we know that that is simply a God thing, because there's no way a site that we couldn't even get to, get to the parts that we needed to get to.
Would be able to process that amount of money with the amount of tax on it.
But we have walked it through.
God has been faithful, and he continues to be faithful.
The trucker...
So the follow-up question to that always is, well, where's the money now?
Because the Canadian government then just went ahead and did some pretty crazy things.
They said, hey, we're not allowing these campaigns.
We're freezing the campaigns and freezing the money.
And we're like...
We look at each other and go, can they do that?
We're a U.S.-based...
And we looked at Canada and we said, you're not the boss of us.
You can't tell us we have to freeze these campaigns.
There's no way we're going to freeze the campaigns.
They didn't like that very much because they're now living in fear, and fear causes them to try to control a situation and overstep.
And so what happens is they go, okay, well, since they're not listening to us, gives and go, what we're going to do is we're going to say any money that comes in to our country, we're going to freeze.
So right now the funds are in a U.S.-based bank waiting as the trucker convoy works out legal options to get the money up there.
It is safe.
People are still donating.
People are still behind this convoy.
You know, the Emergency Act came out saying, hey, we're going to find the people who donated and we're going to freeze their bank accounts.
And then people started, there was a run on the bank.
People go, oh, I need to get my money out of the bank.
They're going to freeze my accounts.
So then all of a sudden, wait, this isn't a good idea either.
We're going to roll that back.
Oh, we don't need to do that anymore.
We've got it under control.
And they're just playing their hand over and over again.
The dictatorship that they are trying, with iron fists, rule those people.
And we're saying, now's the time to stand up.
Don't cower in fear.
We need to join together or they will win.
And we cannot let dictators win.
You know, I remember one day, about a week ago, I woke up early and I began to do research on what's happening on the day.
I was surprised.
I'm like, donor list of Give, Send, Go was released and it was hacked.
People are making maps of the people who donated.
The mainstream media articles are like, we're contacting the donors and we're asking them, why did you donate?
What was your thinking behind giving money to the truckers?
Why are you doing this?
And I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, wow.
This was an illegal hack.
You're not trying to get to the bottom of who hacked it.
You're not condemning the hack.
No, you're going after the individuals who donated the money.
It's such a crazy, blatant double standard.
Unbelievable.
Can you talk about that part of it?
What happened with the hack, and how did you guys react, and how did the media approach you?
Yeah, right.
Well, the media really hasn't approached us about, you know, especially about the piece of who was the hacker and who did this and how can we hold them accountable, which is, like you said, a massive double standard because there is a huge story around that that needs to be uncovered.
And there is an ongoing investigation right now.
To bring those perpetrators, that perpetrator, to justice and make them accountable to the law because what was done was illegal.
It was illegal against Give, Send, Go and it was also illegal against all the people that had given and their average donation of less than $100.
These weren't massive amounts of money.
These were a grassroots movement of the majority being Canadian citizens.
We're giving to see freedom continue to exist in their country because we understand protest is fundamental to democracy.
If you don't have protest, you don't have democracy.
Anyways, as to the hack piece of it, there is an investigation ongoing.
When that came out, we said, what in the world is going on?
Like, route this out.
Let's try to figure out.
We've got forensic teams, as we speak, working on tracing all of this out, figuring out how in the world could it happen.
So we invest a lot into our security in the first place.
It is interesting that this hacker, who's named himself online, has connections to Canadian Intel and doing work for them in the past and the group Anonymous.
Very high-level, sophisticated orchestration attack against GiveSengo, and the disclosure of those names has been used as a curmudgeon just to beat people into submission in Canada.
I am just ashamed at the Canadian government because they've ran with this.
It seems like it was in conjunction with them.
To beat people back using fear as their technique.
It's absolutely disgraceful.
And we're just telling people, listen guys, faith not fear.
Faith not fear.
Stand up.
You did nothing wrong.
We don't allow things that are immoral, like crazy, crazy things on our site.
You did absolutely nothing wrong.
To sow into freedom.
Nothing.
There's just nothing.
You don't have to be afraid of that at all.
And together we're stronger, like Heather said.
So, last question.
So, the Freedom Convoy took place in Canada, went across the country, stopped in Ottawa.
Right now, as we're speaking, there's another convoy that's going across America from the West Coast to the East Coast, intending to go to Washington, D.C. If those truckers are watching right now, what would you tell them?
Come to Gibson Go.
Start a fundraiser.
Absolutely.
We see fundraisers started for all different convoys that are starting to make their way across the United States.
Do not back down.
You're not doing anything wrong.
According to our Constitution, you have the right to protest.
When your government is stepping in, infringing on your God-given rights, you have this...
Right.
It's written in our Constitution.
You have this right.
Take advantage of it.
We're so proud of you.
If you're watching us, we are proud of you for standing up for what you believe, for standing up for all of us.
Because I don't have a truck, but I'm thankful that you're taking this and traveling to speak for me as well.
And so use, give, send, go.
Start a campaign.
People want to give and support this.
There are more people that are wanting to stand up for freedom and Canada just awakened more people.
So it really is kind of exciting because we've lived in like this like bubble of oh let's just convenience and and yeah and now it's time to wake up and say wait there's something bigger happening.
We need to be aware and we need to stop it.
We have the ability to stop it if we if we stand together.
So truckers, keep trucking.
Now, that was not the full interview.
If you'd like to watch that interview in its entirety, as well as that other awesome interview between myself and Dr. Peter Mercolo that I mentioned earlier, you will find all that in the description box below this video.
And by the way, if you click on that link below this video and you use promo code Roman, you can get a 14-day free trial of Epic TV.
So you can watch all the interviews I mentioned, as well as all the other awesome content on there without paying a single penny for two full weeks.
And then afterwards, of course, you can decide if you want to continue, but you are not obligated by any means.
Again, that link will be down in the description box below and use promo code Roman.
And until next time, I'm your host Roman from the Epoch Times.
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