Expert: Exponential increase in US COVID “cases” may actually be caused by errors in processing and reporting

The unprecedented rise in coronavirus cases in the United States may be linked to errors in data processing and reporting, according to a medical expert.

Tim O’Shea, a naturopathic physician and chiropractor from San Jose, California, noted in his podcast The Doctor Within, that while the media freely interchanges the terms “cases” and “positive tests” when talking about the sudden spikes, they are actually different from each other.

According to O’Shea, while there is indeed a sudden uptick in positive tests, one must not assume that those are immediately going to be considered as cases, noting that in terms of medical definitions, a “case” is only identified if someone actually becomes ill due to the infection.

“A case is when someone gets sick from the disease. That’s completely different from a positive test. These two terms are not synonymous like media pretends,” O’Shea said.

Furthermore, the rise in positive cases should not be a cause for alarm, as it can be attributed easily to the increase in testing across the country.

“In two months’ time, we had gone from less than 25,000 tests per day to almost 600,000 tests per day. So of course, there is going to be an enormous rise in positives in every state,” O’Shea added, echoing a similar statement issued by President Donald Trump.

“If we didn’t test, you wouldn’t be able to show that chart,” President Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired on July 19. “If we tested half as much, those numbers would be down.”

O’Shea, in his podcast, also noted that while the number of positive cases may indeed be rising, it is still not a cause for alarm, adding that 99 percent of people who get positive results in their tests never get the disease. (Related: Inaccurate test results, patient histories fuel more coronavirus speculation.)

“The enormous increase in positive tests do not pose any threat to the nation’s health because only about one percent of these positive tests ever become cases. And even those that do, only about one percent of those are serious enough to require treatment.,” O’Shea said, adding that mainstream media must stop fanning panic with regards to the spike in positives.

“There is no such thing as an ‘outbreak’ of positive tests,” O’Shea said. “The pop media saw an opportunity for maximum hysteria.”

Experts: “Number of COVID deaths being padded, artificially inflated”

In his podcast, O’Shea also blasted the government for purportedly playing up the COVID-19 pandemic, which, as of press time, has infected 5,248,722 Americans, of whom 167,106 have died.

This number, O’Shea said, could be tainted, noting that several experts have come out with exposés detailing how state health departments are coaching physicians to list COVID-19 as the cause of death even if it’s just suspected and the patient was never tested.

One such expert, O’Shea said, is Scott Jensen, a licensed physician and a senator from Minnesota.

Jensen, in an interview with author Tony Robbins, noted that there are even people who died in motorcycle accidents who, after testing positive for coronavirus after death, were listed as COVID-19 deaths.

The same thing happened in California, as confirmed by County Health Officer Gail Newell.

“If anyone that has a COVID diagnosis dies, it automatically feeds into the database as a COVID death, even if it wasn’t a COVID death. For example, a 25-year-old dies in a motorcycle accident and then our coroner finds out that he incidentally did have COVID at the time, the state counts that as a COVID death, although he clearly died in a motorcycle accident,” Newell said.

This padding of numbers, O’Shea said, can be traced back to the promise of financial compensation.

“MediCal will automatically pay $4,600 dollars for a diagnosis of pneumonia, but if the patient was also positive for COVID, the code automatically jumps to $39,000,” O’Shea said.

This, according to O’Shea, compels physicians and hospitals to diagnose as many COVID cases as possible.

O’Shea: “Lockdowns contributing to spread of infections”

O’Shea, in his podcast, also called out authorities for imposing indefinite lockdowns on the American population, noting that studies have reportedly shown that these are largely ineffective at stalling the pandemic and may cause more problems by preventing natural herd immunity and adaptation from occurring.

“Isolation prevents normal, everyday human contact which is necessary to reach the saturation point for any disease in a population,” O’Shea stressed, noting that it merely turns homes into “petri dishes,” which then ups the risk of people getting infected.

“In New York City, for example, 84 percent of new infections were from people who stayed home all the time,” O’Shea said, adding that governors who impose such measures are “dictators” intent on turning their states into “de facto dictatorships.”

School closures “ill-advised,” “misguided”

Another aspect of the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic that O’Shea has taken issue with is school closures.

According to O’Shea, this is misguided, citing several studies and experts such as White House coronavirus task force member Scott Atlas, who have noted that children are less likely to be infected with the coronavirus compared to adults.

Atlas, a radiology expert and a senior fellow at Stanford University‘s Hoover Institution, has constantly pushed for the reopening of schools and other educational institutions.

“Schools should be open. COVID presents a virtually zero risk for children. Even in the rare instance they get a flu, they cannot transmit it to other people,” Atlas stated, quoting data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which says that children only exhibit mild symptoms in the rare event that they contract a coronavirus infection.

Another expert cited by O’Shea, Dan Erickson of the private clinic Accelerated Urgent Care, echoed this sentiment, noting that “COVID is no threat to kids” as there are almost no severe cases or deaths involving children nationwide.

“Schools should open immediately and should never have been shut down,” Erickson said.

Michael Roizen, Chief Wellness Officer Emeritus of the Cleveland Clinic, agreed, noting that people who are 70 and older should be the only ones to be put in quarantine, as there is simply no proven risk for anyone else.

As of this writing, global cases for the COVID-19 pandemic have reached over 20 million, with 755,612 confirmed deaths.

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Sources include:

Brighteon.com

FoxNews.com

Coronavirus.JHU.edu

ValleyNewsLive.com

SantaCruzSentinel.com

CNBC.com

BusinessInsider.com

CDC.gov