The CDC made a mistake when it added hundreds of extra deaths to its tally. I was confused as to why the American Academy of Pediatrics was raising its death tally by 20 children per week, while the CDC was adding deaths every day. I know what happened.
I reported the inflated CDC data in a recent article here and issued a correction after learning of the CDC's error.
A previous version of this article misstated the total number of children who had died of COVID and that one-third of these deaths came during the recent Omicron surge. This information was due to miscoded information reported by the CDC COVID Data Tracker, which erroneously added several hundred deaths to the pediatric tally.
I don't want my readers to be misled. This matters a lot to me.
I am not alone in this. The doctors shared their corrections on social media. A correction was issued to a science writer's article. 179 children have died from Covid-19 in the US since the beginning of the current year, compared with 735 children in the preceding 20.
That's depressing, I wrote before how important it is to remember these are actually children, not just numbers on a government website, which is what this essay is all about.
The CDC's Covid Data Tracker reports 1,341 deaths, however this comes from a pool of 782,361 deaths, or 80% of deaths so far. The death toll for children will only get worse. According to a recent CDC report about the Omicron variant, infants and children were hospitalized at five times the normal rate. 63 children and infants have died from this very serious condition.
The number of dead children is a large one, even though a vaccine for children over 5 years can prevent these deaths. Ms. Schreiber said that.
The fact remains: more than 1,300 children have died, and vaccines will prevent more deaths.
Exactly. The core message is this. There are two possible sources of overcounting and undercounting. I think it's important for the CDC to report accurate numbers.
The advice regarding the vaccine wouldn't be different if the death toll was more than a few children. I bet you don't know how many children die in bike accidents each year, but your knowledge of that number wouldn't change your opinion on the value of helmets.
The vaccine isn't perfect, but it's much safer than the virus. Those of us who shared the inflated CDC data know that the case for vaccinations for children is very strong and that the rates are too low. We know that infants have the highest rate of dying, and that children under 5 years can't get vaccinations. We don't want a child to die from a vaccine-preventable virus. This was not a controversial opinion in the medical field prior to the Pandemic.
We all reported what we thought was accurate data from a reliable source. The Urgency of Normal fan asked if there would be any apologies from the people who have been spreading panic with the old incorrect numbers.
I don't think anyone but the CDC should apologize for their coding error, but doctors and journalists with integrity knew it was important to immediately and publicly set the record straight. That is what we did. As Dr. Julia Raifman said.
We should have high standards for correct information, esp in a pandemic…Most experts worked to share the facts.
Most experts share the facts, but not all of them. Readers of Science Based Medicine are familiar with a small number of experts. Dr. Raifman's concern for accuracy stands in stark contrast to their tolerance for repeated errors of basic fact, never admitting error or correct misinformation.
Doctors should be careful when communicating with the public about a virus that has killed over 1,300 children. This is where I would argue with Dr. Raifman. This is not a high standard. Many doctors have failed to meet it.
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