It’s become a commonplace that people who die in motorcycle accidents, and heart attacks, and a variety of other ailments are being classified as COVID. This inflates the numbers, obviously, and also makes the whole thing look worse than it really is.
I personally believe that is the point.
But in all systems where pervasive fraud is alleged–Global Warming is another obvious example–it is not enough to simply say “they are all liars”. You have to look at the money, and the means by which the distribution system creates perverse incentives, by means of which normally reasonably honest people find themselves both bending and breaking the rules and the ethics underlying them.
With respect to COVID-19, it is important to remember that most hospitals and most medical centers–most medical practices of nearly any sort–were required to suspect nearly all their business. They were forced to go into deep losses of revenue, which caused many if not most of them to lay off qualified medical professionals in the middle of a purportedly massive, catastrophic pandemic . That alone should set off warning bells for anyone with three brain cells to rub together.
But in short order, many were looking at bankruptcy. What to do?
Well, look at these numbers: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/state-by-state-breakdown-of-federal-aid-per-covid-19-case.html
In Alaska, you could code someone who dies of a heart attack at age 82 as “cardiovascular” disease, and get perhaps $10,000; or you could suppose they “probably” had it, since there were other COVID patients in the hospital, and then code them that way–without any testing, to be clear–and get $300,000. As someone trying to keep the doors open, what would you do? Don’t answer too quickly. It’s a bad time to lose your job.