Here's How NYC's Coronavirus Death Toll Is Being Inflated
By Beth Bauman
TownHall.com
Source: Claudio
Furlan/LaPresse via AP
Project Veritas recently released a new video that included phone calls with multiple funeral directors in the New York City metro area who say patients are being labeled as "coronavirus deaths" even though the person may have never even tested positive for the virus.
“To be honest with you, all of the death certificates, they're writing COVID on all the death certificate, whether they had a positive test, whether they didn't," Michael Lanza, the funeral director at Colonial Funeral Home in Staten Island, told Project Veritas. "So, I think, you know, again, this is my personal opinion, I think that like the mayor in our city, they're looking for federal funding and, the more they put COVID on the death certificate, the more they can ask for federal funds. So I think it's political."
According to Josephine Dimiceli, the President of Dimiceli & Sons Funeral Home, she had a client who is a New York State Supreme Court Justice. She didn't believe her sister died of the Wuhan coronavirus. According to the justice, the sister had Alzheimer's and she died because the health care workers failed to "suction her because [she] forget how to swallow."
"Right away they put down COVID-19 on her death certificate," Dimiceli said. The justice had an independent autopsy performed and found no signs of the Wuhan coronavirus.
Although people like Lanza can't prove every single person did not die of the Wuhan coronavirus, he said, "that is my suspicion." He says he believes people are being labeled as COVID deaths because it "make(s) life easier for them."
Lanza said the health care system is "overwhelmed and it's just easier to write COVID on everything. That's my opinion."
Another reason the funeral director believes this is happening is because families are coming into his funeral home saying no one in the family – including the deceased – were tested for the virus.
"If the doctor thinks you had COVID, he can write it down," Lanza said.
Joesph Antioco, the funeral director at Schaefer Funeral Home, said anyone with any kind of "respiratory distress" or "respiratory problems" – like pneumonia or the flu – are immediately being labeled as COVID deaths.
"To me, all you're doing is padding the statistics," Antioco said. "You know, you're putting people on that have COVID-19. If they didn't have it, you're making the death rate for New York City a lot higher than it should be."
Antioco said that many people are dying at home. Usually the medical examiner confers with the treating physician and the death is listed on the death certificate. Because of the Wuhan coronavirus though, the system is so overwhelmed that medical examiners are making the assumption that those who died at home died from the virus. Part of that is because the medical examiners are no longer making house calls.
We knew that there were issues with the way Wuhan coronavirus deaths were being counted. After all, Dr. Deborah Birx said anyone who dies who had the coronavirus – even if they have recovered – would be counted as part of the COVID deaths. This just takes things to a whole new level and brings about the question: just how deadly is the coronavirus?