Lauren Dempsey, MS in Biomedicine and Law, RN, FISM News 

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Last week the CDC quietly updated data on its tracker website that eliminated over 71,000 COVID-19 deaths with 416 of those being pediatric deaths.

The update was made after the CDC discovered that there were discrepancies due to a “coding logic error” which “resulted in decreased death counts across all demographic categories.” The CDC relies on states to provide accurate information in COVID-19 reporting, however on their website they note that the data is not complete. It would appear that this incorrect data led to the inflation of COVID-19 deaths, as many have suggested over the last two years. 

Prior to editing the data, the CDC had listed that 1,755 children had died from COVID-19. This total decreased by almost 24% after the changes had been made as well as cutting 71,000 from other demographics, dropping the reported death total to about 780,000.

This new data supports suspicions of critics who have questioned the accuracy of the data and how it has been used to drive pandemic related policies for the past two years. The COVID death toll was, for example, a major factor in the approval of experimental mRNA vaccines.  

While the CDC has claimed the data may be incomplete or inaccurate, it was nevertheless used it to encourage and promote mass vaccination campaigns, including for young children. The CDC and other government agencies have continually urged and even required Americans to “trust the science” but have often failed to provide accurate scientific data. The previously published CDC COVID death rates were frequently cited by doctors and mainstream media to highlight why school closures, universal masking, and mandated vaccines were essential in getting back to normal life.  

It has been well documented that children face the least amount of risk from COVID-19 infection and have the lowest mortality rates than any other age group, making up less than 0.1% of the total COVID-19 deaths. Data shows that unvaccinated children have had significantly better outcomes than vaccinated adults, yet they have been required to sacrifice the most throughout the pandemic.

When faced with the Omicron surge, health officials and government agencies pushed for parents to get their children vaccinated. The since-changed data was used at that time to push for FDA authorization of COVID-19 vaccines in children aged 5-11.  

This is not the first time the CDC has changed COVID-19 data or failed to be completely transparent about the data that was being collected. Both Dr. Fauci and CDC Director Walensky previously admitted that many children that had been hospitalized with a COVID-19 diagnosis were just incidental findings.

Recently the isolation and quarantine guidelines were changed. The CDC shifted its focus to tracking hospitalizations rather than case counts, which led to changes in masking guidelines across 70% of the country. The agency also admitted to withholding information regarding the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots over fears that Americans would misinterpret or mishandle the information.

As reported by POLITICO, Walensky admitted that the CDC needs to do better with data collecting in an inter-agency email. The CDC has since asked Congress for more money for data modernization to help improve their data collection methods and data analysis.

“The data issues are real,” said former CDC director Jeffrey Koplan at a panel last week, “This undermines what we’re trying to do and that needs to be corrected.”