Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed The Ohio Star Managing Editor Jack Windsor to the newsmakers line.
During the third hour, Windsor discussed his recent article in The Ohio Star where he questioned the CDC’s recent release of COVID death numbers quietly revealing less than 10,000 and counting deaths that were due to a co-morbidity yet tested positive for COVID after the death adding to the data.
Leahy: Welcome Jack. Good morning.
Windsor: Michael. Good to be here. Thank you for having me, sir.
Leahy: So you did a really great story on this new CDC admission, and it’s very confusing. Let me just read the first four sentences of your story, and then if you could elaborate. At The Ohio Star and ran it in all of our titles. You said the week of the 24th that the CDC weekly index disclosed that of six percent of deaths that COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned.
That means of 183,000 deaths attributed to COVID as a release of this article that 10,980 people died from COVID. What that does not mean is that only 10,980 people in America died of COVID. But the remaining 172,000 plus deaths occurred with COVID. Can you kind of unravel that for us, Jack?
Windsor: (Chuckles) Yes. I want to be very careful there. The CDC, as you indicated, they did say that six percent of the deaths that go into that total amount of COVID deaths that we’re tracking across the country died because of coronavirus. So that was the thing that took them over the edge.
The other amount, that 172,000 plus deaths, those people had on average two point six percent or two point six percent other co-morbids. And when we say co-morbids, the top one’s that the CDC identified were influenza, pneumonia, high blood pressure, diabetes, brain damage, and impaired blood flow, cardiac arrest, kidney failure. Suicide, homicide and domestic violence, and other adverse events such as medical treatment mishaps and other medical conditions. So that’s the laundry list.
And of the 170,000 plus, 2.6 of those other co-morbids apply. So that is the baseline to go from. And the question then becomes, OK. In the United States, how many people really died because of COVID? And how many other people died because they had these other conditions and COVID happened to be in their system at the time of death and marked on their death certificate.
Leahy: For this to come at this date, that difference is very significant. How does the CDC explain this? And the other part of it is, does that suggest that these draconian shutdown measures were extraordinarily ill-advised?
Windsor: Well there is evidence to go in both directions that shutdowns were ineffective. When you look at Sweden and what happened there. And there are a couple of states in the United States where there were far fewer regulations and the numbers there are better.
So that question is something I think that we will grapple with for a long time. But what the CDC doesn’t say, and what we don’t know and I wish that we did now, is how prevalent or how strong was the virus in all of these people who died? Because, if somebody dies of pneumonia or respiratory failure there probably is causation there.
That COVID was the reason that pneumonia came about or respiratory failure came about. Now, diabetes, cardiac arrest, kidney failure. How do we know? There are PCR tests. There are multiple types, but you classify them into two. And one is the antigen quick result test and the other one was the PCR test the one they called the gold standard.
That PCR test can give us what’s called a viral load. It can tell us how much of the virus is in somebody. So that’s what I would really want to know. Of those 183,000 deaths, how many people had a significant amount of a viral load where we can say yes, they had heart failure but because the heart was working overtime to stave off this virus. You don’t know that. And that’s not what the CDC is really telling us, and people are starting to wonder.
Leahy: Now the people in the mainstream media, report this in kind of a different way. They claim you don’t really understand what this means when the CDC says only six percent of these COVID-19 deaths where COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. How is this playing out? And Crom wants to ask a question.
Carmichael: I have a question. What you are telling us, I think what I just heard you say, is that it was the CDC that provided the information that included that six percent factor. Is that correct?
Windsor: Yes. They have a weekly index for the week of the 24th, which would have been last week. They indicated that six percent of deaths were equal to one co-morbid or one morbid that was COVID.
Carmichael: Is this the first week that they’ve been providing the information in that structure?
Windsor: I think it’s the first week that it’s been highlighted. When you get on the CDC’s website it is like a maze. And it is the first time that I have seen it spelled out that way and released that way. Going back to April, before COVID, they reported influenza-like illness and pneumonia. That was their surveillance system.
As of April, they included the coronavirus. So now they call it IPC. Influenza, pneumonia, and coronavirus. And all of it kind of gets reported in one bucket. Which by the way, that should give you some concern and make us ask about testing going into the flu season.
If influenza is going to be in the same bucket as pneumonia and coronavirus, and if we start seeing spikes again, are we going to test people for influenza and coronavirus? Are we going to test people for influenza and coronavirus? I’m concerned that we are going to see numbers again, and people are going to go here’s the wave again. Is it the wave? Or is it influenza?
Carmichael: And its incredibly important from a public policy standpoint for the facts to be known and to be widely understood. Because the officials who make wise decisions based on the facts can still get crushed if the public perception is the opposite of the truth.
Windsor: Absolutely. And it goes back to what we just talked about a minute ago. If we can understand what the viral load is in people who are dying then we can say that somebody who died of kidney disease and that may have been the onset or exacerbated by COVID. But there are numbers that should unequivocally be subtracted from death totals.
Causes of death like suicide and domestic violence and medical accidents. Those numbers, may not be large, they maybe 5,000 or 10,00 but they can be determined and they should be excluded. In fact, The Ohio Star interviewed Warren County, Ohio Sheriff Larry Simms and he told us a story of a woman who was in jail and she was released.
She committed suicide. And her death was counted as a COVIDÂ death. That deaths with COVID were being counted and dismissed as being anecdotal. Now it proves to be true. That there are line items for such things as poisoning and accidents. And again, those numbers aren’t large but certainly should not be included.
Carmichael: Well if you die of a drug overdose and it is determined that you tested positive for COVID that’s another example and there is probably a larger number of those that fall into that category than suicides. You would have died of the fentanyl overdoes anyway. And the fact that they tested you later in your autopsy and found COVID then they called it a COVID death, that’s part of the bad data that factors into public policy.
Windsor: It really is. And that has happened, and we know it’s happened in Ohio. Overdose and somebody has COVID in their system and it gets counted. One thing I will also point out is that COVID is not unique that it can exacerbate or it can worsen a condition. We all have family members who have aged and passed away and they passed away because they got the flu.
And the flu turned into pneumonia and made other conditions in the body play out more severely. This isn’t something that is new with the coronavirus. We hear that a lot right? Even if you have obesity or heart disease you are more at risk. You are going to be more at risk potentially this flu season because that’s what viruses do to our body.
Leahy: Jack one last question. I want to get this in. Why six months into this pandemic is this the first time we’ve seen the CDC prominently report that only six percent of COVID-19 deaths took place with only COVID-19Â as the only cause?
Windsor: Well here’s my wild guess. Are you ready?
Leahy: I’m ready. Shoot.
Windsor: If you remember a couple of weeks back or more than that now President Trump came out and said we are going to bypass the CDC, you are going to send the information to the White House. I think it’s a C.Y.A. situation.
Leahy: Very interesting.
Carmichael: That last statement might be the most telling of all.
Listen to the full third hour here:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.Â
