Article

2020-07-25 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Deaths incorrectly attributed to COVID-19 in Palm Beach County

Good to see the workload has reduced enough that they can start cleaning up the data.

[CBS affiliate, West Palm Beach, FL] A 60-year-old man who died from a gun shot wound to the head.

A 90-year-old man who fell and died from complications of a hip fracture.

A 77-year-old woman who died of Parkinson's disease.

These are some of the deaths in Palm Beach County recently, and incorrectly, attributed to COVID-19 in medical examiner records.

The CBS12 News I-Team uncovered several examples in Medical Examiner reports of people counted as a COVID death who did not die of COVID.

We requested a list of all COVID-19 deaths in Palm Beach County from the Medical Examiner's office and received a spread sheet of 581 cases.

Each person on the spreadsheet is someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

In each case line, the person's cause of death and contributing causes of death are listed, if there are any.

The I-Team found eight cases in which a person was counted as a COVID death, but did not have COVID listed as a cause of contributing cause of death.

That’s about 2%.

"I think it is completely misleading," said Rachel Eade, a Palm Beach County resident who has been researching the same issue.

"We need to remove those cases that are not COVID exclusive, and we need to be giving people that information," said Eade, who is one of the plaintiffs suing Palm Beach County for its mask mandate.

She said of the 581 deaths on the spreadsheet, only 169 deaths are listed as COVID without any contributing factors.

Almost 30%.

Governor Ron DeSantis said in a recent appearance on Fox News that his office is aware of deaths incorrectly attributed to COVID-19, like the case of a man in Orange County who died in a motorcycle crash, but was listed as a COVID death.

"I think the public, when they see the fatality figures, they want to know who died because they caught COVID," said DeSantis.

"If you're just in a car accident - and we have had other instances where there is no real relationship and it's been counted, we want to look at that and see how pervasive that issue is as well."

The I-Team took our findings to the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's office, and Operations Manager Paul Petrino said the eight we flagged were in fact errors, and should not have been on their spreadsheet.

He said office is in the process of removing them.

We asked Petrino if these erroneous deaths were reported to the state Department of Health and counted toward official COVID death counts, and he said the DOH should have caught the mistakes and not included them.

Posted by Clem 2020-07-25 00:00|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 The I-Team found eight cases in which a person was counted as a COVID death, but did not have COVID listed as a cause of contributing cause of death.

"I" for ???

That’s about 2%.

1.37% 😒

"I think it is completely misleading," said Rachel Eade, a Palm Beach County resident who has been researching the same issue.

Totally misleading. Wonder how Rachel would react if a traffic cop stopped her for going 55.757 mph in a 55 mph zone?

For some reason I'm reminded of John W. Campbell statement "Half of American children have below average intelligence".

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-07-25 06:33|| 2020-07-25 06:33|| Front Page Top

#2 GIGO

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-07-25 06:49|| 2020-07-25 06:49|| Front Page Top

#3 It's about credibility, G. You should look it up

Posted by Frank G 2020-07-25 07:50|| 2020-07-25 07:50|| Front Page Top

#4 ^You're entertaining Frank.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-07-25 08:14|| 2020-07-25 08:14|| Front Page Top

#5 ...yep....then again.

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-07-25 08:40|| 2020-07-25 08:40|| Front Page Top

#6 ^Entertaining in a different way.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-07-25 08:42|| 2020-07-25 08:42|| Front Page Top

#7 LOL P2K

Posted by Frank G 2020-07-25 08:53|| 2020-07-25 08:53|| Front Page Top

#8 SF Muni driver beaten with bat after asking passengers to wear masks

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-07-25 09:57|| 2020-07-25 09:57|| Front Page Top

#9 They aren't so terrific counting votes, either.

Posted by Cesare 2020-07-25 10:10|| 2020-07-25 10:10|| Front Page Top

#10 For some reason I'm reminded of John W. Campbell statement "Half of American children have below average intelligence".

Quick quip and humorous, but statistically speaking, not true.

We could have 40% weighing extra heavy on the IQ, offset by 60% dunderheads.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-07-25 11:04|| 2020-07-25 11:04|| Front Page Top

#11 It's normal distribution, swk - the median is also the mean.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-07-25 11:16|| 2020-07-25 11:16|| Front Page Top

#12 Not necessarily.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-07-25 11:28|| 2020-07-25 11:28|| Front Page Top

#13 Mean, median, mode are all fine tools for getting an idea statistically of trends and ideas, box & whiskers also is nice as outliers are, well, outliers.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-07-25 11:32|| 2020-07-25 11:32|| Front Page Top

#14 When global warming was the thing, each Spring and Autumn the local news would get on the grandstand about 'higher than average temperatures'.

Thing is, weather in this area fluctuates that time of year with air from the Gulf of Mexico and Canada going back and forth, so much so that in the Spring especially we get some nasty storms.

So for a couple days it may be 90 - 110 F, then overnight it may be 50 - 60 F. So that gives us an average of say 75 F. So for those days it is +75F the weather chapter is like, 'Oh my were are melting! Dig into the hills and vote Greta!'.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-07-25 11:39|| 2020-07-25 11:39|| Front Page Top

#15 #12

f(x)={\frac {1}{\sigma {\sqrt {2\pi }}}}e^{-{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {x-\mu }{\sigma }}\right)^{2}}

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-07-25 11:48|| 2020-07-25 11:48|| Front Page Top

#16 You show me a function of x, and I just ask: y?

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-07-25 11:59|| 2020-07-25 11:59|| Front Page Top

#17 ASCII a stupid question, get a stupid ANSI.

Posted by DooDahMan 2020-07-25 12:01|| 2020-07-25 12:01|| Front Page Top

#18 I apologize for sounding chippy, its not that I hate statistics or screwdrivers, I just don't like watching screwdrivers used to drive nails.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-07-25 12:06|| 2020-07-25 12:06|| Front Page Top

#19 I think an innumerate UK politician claimed to want to get everyone above average.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2020-07-25 12:08|| 2020-07-25 12:08|| Front Page Top

#20 #10 For some reason I'm reminded of John W. Campbell statement "Half of American children have below average intelligence".

Depends on the baseline. Below average intelligence of what? - world population? American people? Students at MIT? Members of Congress? Trees in Yellowstone Park?

Posted by CrazyFool 2020-07-25 12:40|| 2020-07-25 12:40|| Front Page Top

#21 And, lots of people manage to act less intelligent than they actually might be once they get on their hobby horse.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-07-25 13:41|| 2020-07-25 13:41|| Front Page Top

#22 Apologies if I came out like an ass after bad oysters; had a stat professor who went outside curriculum to explain how one could take real stats methods and frame it using common language to show what one wanted to show.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-07-25 22:23|| 2020-07-25 22:23|| Front Page Top

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