Orange County, Florida officials confirmed that one death from a car accident was initially included in the death toll from coronavirus. He was later removed from the list, but not until the authorities were challenged by the media.
The Florida Department of Health in Orange County announced Saturday that it no longer counts the death of a man in his 20s in a motorcycle accident as a death from coronavirus.
The case “He was reviewed and removed from the list for Covid deaths” Kent Donahue, spokesman for Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raúl Pino, told Fox35, who initially revealed the story after reading the official Covid-19 victim lists provided by the state.
Also on rt.com
UK stops daily updates on Covid-19 deaths for possible ‘distortions’ of daily death rate
In its report on Thursday, the Fox News affiliate said they stumbled upon various oddities when reviewing the data, and decided to confront Pino for the deaths of two 20-year-olds who stood out from the rest.
Perhaps to their surprise, the journalists obtained a direct admission from Pino that death was included in the coronavirus number in an apparent error.
“The first one had none … the first one died in a motorcycle accident” he said. When asked if the county removed the man’s death from Covid-19’s death list, Pino further raised his eyebrows and said that “They argued … with the state” about the topic
“We were arguing, arguing, or trying to argue with the state. Not by the numbers. They are 100 … it makes no difference if they are 99. But the fact that the individual did not die from Covid-19 … he died in an accident. “
Man dies in motorcycle accident – classified as death COVID.Dr. Raúl Pino, COVID Health Officer, when asked how this could be: “Maybe COVID19 crashed it.” You cannot invent this. pic.twitter.com/aiAMKKy3wo
– Brad Johnson (@ tuns1999) July 18, 2020
Then the official appeared to back down on his initial comment, saying that in theory it could be argued that the man’s being positive for Covid-19 could have led to the accident.
But you could actually argue that it could have been the Covid-19 that caused it to crash. I don’t know the conclusion of that.
Meanwhile, Orange County set a new record for single-day coronavirus deaths with up to 14 deaths reported on Saturday. His previous record was nine fatal cases in 24 hours. Nearby Marion County also broke its own record of a single-day Covid-19 death toll, reporting eight deaths.
Also on rt.com
Texas slows its reopening process as coronavirus cases skyrocket
Overall, Florida reported 10,327 positive cases of coronavirus on Saturday, bringing the total number of infections in the state to 337,568, including 4,895 who died from the virus.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!
