94 Percent of COVID-19 Deaths in US Have Contributing Health Conditions, CDC Says

94 Percent of COVID-19 Deaths in US Have Contributing Health Conditions, CDC Says
A podium with the logo for the CDC. Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Paula Liu
Updated:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently updated information regarding COVID-19 deaths, indicating that 94 percent of them had other contributing health conditions.

The data update, which was made on Aug. 26, incorporated deaths that occurred in the United States from Feb. 1 to Aug. 22, but may still be incomplete “because of the lag in time between when the death occurred and when the death certificate is completed.”

According to the report, the CDC indicated that out of all the deaths recorded during this time, only six percent of them listed COVID-19 as the only contributing factor. Furthermore, the report indicated that in the other 94 percent, individuals suffered from, on average, 2.6 additional health conditions.

The CDC listed the top contributing health conditions along with COVID-19 as Influenza and pneumonia, respiratory failure, hypertensive disease, diabetes, cardiac arrest, heart, and renal failure, as well as vascular and unspecified dementia.

According to WTVM, Bill Harris, a coroner in Lee County, Georgia, said that the majority of his COVID-19 death cases (from 80 to 90 percent of them) had other contributing health conditions along with COVID-19. For him, the data from CDC’s updated report didn’t seem shocking because out of all of the cases that he had seen, only a select few of them had COVID-19 as the only factor with no other medical issues.

“Congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, any kind of lung disease, obesity, if you’re morbidly obese, they have a hard time surviving,” said Harris.

According to researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who analyzed data from 75 studies conducted globally from January and June involving 399,461 patients with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, obesity increases the chance of hospitalization by 113 percent and admittance in the intensive care unit by 74 percent. More concerning is that people with obesity have a 48 percent higher risk of dying from COVID-19.
The Epoch Times writers Meiling Lee and Venus Upadhayaya contributed to this report.