In Colorado, a man died from alcohol poisoning: death attributed to COVID-19

A Colorado man died of alcohol poisoning, but his death was classified as coronavirus-induced. This could mean a distorted death toll from COVID-19 in the state. Writes about this writes Fox News.

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Sebastian Yellow, 35, was found dead on May 4. Montezuma County coroner George Divers later found that the man’s death was due to acute alcohol poisoning. The alcohol content in his blood was 0,55. The legal limit in the state is 0,08.

But before Divers signed the death certificate, Colorado health officials classified the death of a man as a consequence of COVID-19.

Back in April, health officials in Colorado classified three deaths in a nursing home as deaths from COVID-19, although treating doctors decided that they were not related to coronavirus.

Although Yellow had a positive COVID-19 test result, Divers said his death had nothing to do with coronavirus.

“It wasn’t COVID, it was alcohol poisoning,” Deavers said. “Yes, he had COVID-19, but it was not the cause of his death.”

The Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment has published a statement on how they classify COVID-19-related deaths.

On the subject: Coronavirus vaccine: what success did different developers achieve

“We classify a death as confirmed when a positive laboratory test for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) was performed and the person then died. We are also classifying some deaths as probable,” the statement said.

“The bottom line is that there must be strong epidemiological evidence of COVID-19, such as a combination of close contact with a confirmed case and symptoms of COVID-19. We count a death as a COVID-19 death if the death certificate lists the cause of death as COVID-19,” the department said.

Dr. Deborah Birks, White House Coronavirus Task Force Response Coordinator, said the federal government in April classifies mortality of patients infected with coronavirus as mortality from COVID-19, regardless of any health problems that could have contributed to death.

“There are countries in which concomitant diseases will be considered the cause of death, even if a person had coronavirus and it was because of it that the patient sought help and only then problems with other organs began,” she said. “There it is recorded as a problem, for example with the heart or kidney, and not as a death from COVID-19.”

Such cases of classification, as in Yellow, may mean that mortality from the virus is overstated, although some, on the contrary, are sure: it is underestimated.

During the presentation, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that incorrect indicators can be caused by the presence of people who died at home from the coronavirus, but were not counted in the general statistics, because they did not go to the hospital.

“I think you're right that the number is probably higher,” Fauci said in response to a question from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. “I don’t know exactly how much, but almost certainly higher.”

Read also on ForumDaily:

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