Poor hosp/death data drives poor policies.

Poor policies create incentives that drive poor hosp/death data.

"It’s time to recognize that Covid is no longer an emergency requiring special policies."

Latest with @LeslieBienen and @JeanneNoble18
www.wsj.com/articles/the-vicious-circle-of-covid-boondoggles-and-bad-data-fema-cdc-states-death-certi...

Hospitals overcount hospitalizations and deaths from Covid.  Several European countries seeing this too.  Testing everyone + lax definitions make it such that many incidentals are in the counts.  These counts are widely reported in the media and are used to set policies.

It would be better to parse "for vs with".  There is no perfect way to do this but some hospitals try by using dexamethasone or remdesivir administration to select for those there for Covid symptoms.  Despite the effort, CDC lumps it all back together anyway.

Hospitals should stop routine testing. But they receive a 20% increase in Medicare payment rate for every patient diagnosed with Covid-19. So, why stop testing?

FEMA has paid nearly $3 billion in death benefits to families that have lost family members to Covid. Families want Covid on the death certificate even if asymptomatic. So, why stop testing?

Of note, FEMA doesn't pay death benefits for other infectious diseases.

Under current circumstances, and IFR on par with flu, we should remove outdated incentives that may be muddling up data collection, fueling alarm, wasting federal funds, clouding who is truly at risk, and tying up healthcare providers in regulations that restrict capacity.