https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rl2cL0Q4enYJ:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/13/covid-pandemic-deaths-hospitalizations-overcounting/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

We are overcounting covid deaths and hospitalizations. That’s a problem.

By Leana S. Wen

January 13, 2023

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States is experiencing around 400 covid deaths every day.

At that rate, there would be nearly 150,000 deaths a year.

But are these Americans dying from covid or with covid?

Understanding this distinction is crucial to putting the continuing toll of the coronavirus into perspective. Determining how likely it is an infection will result in hospitalization or death helps people weigh their own risk. It also enables health officials to assess when vaccine effectiveness wanes and future rounds of boosters are needed.

Two infectious-disease experts I spoke with believe that the number of deaths attributed to covid is far greater than the actual number of people dying from covid. Robin Dretler, an attending physician at Emory Decatur Hospital and the former…