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“We are wrong because we count deaths in a different way than in the rest of Europe. Do we want to say it or do we not want to say it? Since we changed the methodology for accounting for deaths, we are drastically reducing lethality but we have an original sin that worries March- April, where anyone who came to the hospital with a positive swab, even if they had a heart attack, was classified as dead by Covid. ” Guest in “l’Aria che tira”, in La7 the invectivologist of San Martino di Genova Matteo bassetti He spoke of the fatality figures of Covid in Italy, much higher than those of other countries. Why? Bassetti explains that the original sin was committed at the beginning of the epidemic, when he said that deaths from other causes were also counted as Covid if in the presence of a positive swab.
“If today after nine months we don’t know how to look back and Admit a mistake – added the specialist in infectious diseases -, we will continue to be considered the worst in Europe. And as a doctor I don’t like this. It is we who have taught the Germans and French how to do it, but we find ourselves with a higher mortality than that of India. It is clear that there is a problem, in my opinion especially of counting ”.
Covid, how deaths are counted in Italy
Bassetti is right? And how are Covid deaths in Italy counted? According to the National Institute of Health (to whom does it inform) to define a death as due to COVID-19, all of the following criteria must be present:
- Positive buffer for COVID-19.
- “Presence of a clinical and instrumental picture suggestive of COVID-19. The definition of a compatible clinical picture – we read in the specific report of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità – is the responsibility of the doctor who certifies the causes of death (treatment or necropsy)” ISS also recalls that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified the following symptoms as typical of COVID-19 infection:
- Temperature
- Cough
- Dyspnoea
- Cold
- Tremor
- Muscle pains
- Headache
- Sore throat
- Acute loss of smell or taste.
- Absence “of a clear cause of death other than COVID-19 or, in any case, not attributable to SARS-CoV-2 infection (eg trauma). For the purpose of evaluating this criterion, they should not be considered among the clear causes of death other than COVID-19 pre-existing pathologies that may have favored or predisposed to a negative course of the infection. A pre-existing pathology – explains the ISS – is defined as any pathology that preceded the SARS-CoV-2 infection or that contributed to the death even though they were not part of the sequence of causes that led to the death itself, for example, pre-existing diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular, kidney and liver diseases, dementia, psychiatric diseases and diabetes.
- Lack of a full clinical recovery period between illness and death. The complete clinical recovery period means the documented complete remission of the clinical and instrumental picture of “Sars-CoV-2 infection.”
Therefore, death is counted as Covid in the presence of a clinical picture compatible with the disease and in the absence of “a clear cause of death other than COVID-19”.
The study on deaths from positive viruses: 9 out of 10 died of Covid
It has always been like this? From what we have been able to reconstruct, neither the ISS nor the Ministry of Health have ever announced that they have revised the criteria by which deaths from Covid are classified. After all, Bassetti himself pointed out that nine months later we have not been able to “look back and admit a mistake.”
in a report of the ISS of July 16 and based on the medical records of 4,942 deceased patients, however, it is stated that “Covid-19 is the cause of death directly responsible in 89% of the deaths of people positive to the Sars test -CoV-2, while for the remaining 11% of the causes of death are cardiovascular diseases (4.6%), tumors (2.4%), diseases of the respiratory system (1%), diabetes (0.6% ), dementias and diseases of the digestive system (0.6% and 0.5% respectively) “. Therefore, the report’s results appear to suggest that non-Covid-related deaths are in a very low percentage among deceased patients who tested positive.
In Italy the excess mortality is higher than in France and Germany
However, we actually also know that between March and April many deaths that could be related to Covid were not recorded in the statistics because the swab was not performed. In particular, a study carried out by INPS emerged from March 1 to the end of April 2020, in full emergency, about 47 thousand more people died in Italy than the average of previous years, + 43%. In the same period, the official gazette counted 27,938 Covid deaths. There are almost 19 thousand more deaths than in previous years, not officially considered caused by the coronavirus. This is the so-called excess mortality that occurs when the number of deaths exceeds the annual average of those who die of old age or from normal diseases. The social security institution had explained that “taking into account that the number of deaths is quite stable over time, with due caution we can attribute a large part of the highest deaths that occurred in the last two months, with respect to those of the line base referring to the same period, to an ongoing epidemic “.
In June Political report card published an enlightening article on the submerged deaths of Covid in various European countries. If in Spain the excess mortality turned out to be higher than the Italian one (the 19 thousand deaths mentioned in the INPS), in the period from March 2 to May 3, 2020, the United Kingdom registered a difference of 12,412 deaths. In France, the difference between deaths in the period March-April 2020 (60 days) and the average of the previous five years (2015-2019) was only 1,429 cases. Germany did even better. Taking into account the period March 16 – May 10, 2020 (55 days) and comparing the number of deaths with the average for the same period in previous years, it turns out that 7,755 more died in 2020 than the average of the four years previous. “At the same time – explains Pagella Politics -, the official victims of Covid-19 were 7,775: twenty more than the registered increase. This means that the excess mortality value and the official death count linked to the pandemic are substantially consistent. ”
And to say that in the early stages of the epidemic Germany was so accused of hiding the victims that the Robert Koch Institute was forced to explain that “all deaths related to the Covid-19 disease are registered” so much with reference to ” dead people”. directly from the disease “and” for patients with previous illnesses that make it impossible to clearly demonstrate what was ultimately the cause of death. “In case of suspicion, the institute added,” post-mortem examinations can be performed. “
The fatality rate and the Italian anomaly
In short, from the data on excess mortality it does not appear that Italy has been a virtuous example. However, even looking at the case fatality rate, Italy does worse than other European countries. According to data from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Mexico ranks first in the ranking with ten deaths per hundred officially positive for Sars-CoV-2. Iran follows in second place with a 5% fatality rate. And in third place is Italy. Almost four deaths, 3.8 to be precise, for every 100 cases of coronavirus, compared to 1.6% in Germany, 2% in France and 2.8% in Spain.
