疾病控制和预防中心的一份报告被阴谋论者歪曲，暗示新冠肺炎(新型冠状病毒肺炎)健康专家说，死亡人数没有听起来那么严重。对此，安东尼·福奇博士和其他医学权威人士明确表示，至少有18万美国人死于这种病毒。
健康专家说，如果有什么不同的话，这个数字可能是一个低估。
“不要有任何混淆，”福西在总统之后说唐纳德·特朗普转发了一篇文章，错误地指出新冠肺炎的真实死亡人数是9000。“这不是9000人死于新冠肺炎。死亡人数超过18万。”福奇说:“疾病预防控制中心试图说明的一点是，一定比例的(死亡)除了COVID外别无他物。”
“这并不意味着死于COVID的高血压或糖尿病患者不是死于新冠肺炎。他们做到了。”
该报告发表于8月26日，是疾病预防控制中心向公众发布的标准每周数据更新的一部分，它审视了死亡证明，并指出新冠肺炎是死亡的唯一原因列在6%的冠状病毒死亡病例中。
但是有些人从两个方面误解了这个数字，他们认为只有6%的新冠肺炎死亡是由新冠肺炎造成的，并且只有那些已经存在疾病的人有患严重疾病的危险。专家说，这两种解释都不正确。
疾病控制中心下属的国家健康统计中心死亡率分部的发言人告诉美国广播公司新闻，死亡证明通常会列出导致死亡的任何原因或条件。
这位NCHS发言人说:“这些死因是由医生、验尸官或验尸官记录在死亡证明上的。”“死亡证明可能列出了一个或多个原因或条件，这是根据该专业人员的医学专业知识确定的。”
NCHS将“死亡的潜在原因”定义为“导致一系列事件最终导致一个人死亡的条件。”
根据NCHS的统计，在提到新冠肺炎的所有死亡案例中，有92%的案例将新冠肺炎列为潜在的死亡原因。NCHS发现，截至8月22日，共有161，392份这样的死亡证明。在提到新冠肺炎的94%的死亡证明上，还列出了另外一种情况，如糖尿病、高血压、肺炎或呼吸衰竭。
塔米·沙佩尔/法新社，通过盖蒂图像，文件
亚特兰大疾病控制中心总部的全景，2020年4月23日。
虽然死亡证明可以帮助科学家理解趋势，但它们并不完美。各州和各市有不同的报告要求，有些要求比其他要求更严格。
疾病预防控制中心和世界卫生组织早就声明患有潜在的健康状况，如糖尿病、高血压病和呼吸系统疾病，都有较高的患严重新冠肺炎病和死亡的风险。
但是健康专家警告说，只有先有疾病的人才会被新冠肺炎严重患病或杀死的说法忽略了一个事实45%的美国人如果他们感染了冠状病毒，就有可能患上严重疾病。
医学专家说，许多和新冠肺炎一起住院的病人在住院前并不知道他们有潜在的疾病。此外，还有一些患者，他们的死因，如心脏骤停，很可能是由新冠肺炎感染引发的。
约翰·霍普金斯大学有自己的最新COVID统计数据，已经报道了超过600万COVID感染和183，000例死亡在美国。
What the CDC death report really says, according to Fauci
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report is being twisted by conspiracy theorists to imply theCOVID-19death toll is not as serious as it sounds, health experts say. In response, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other medical authorities say unequivocally that at least 180,000 Americans have died because of this virus.
And if anything, the figure is likely an undercount, say health experts.
"Let there not be any confusion," Fauci said after PresidentDonald Trumpretweeted an article that inaccurately suggested the real number of COVID-19 deaths is 9,000. "It's not 9,000 deaths from COVID-19. It's 180,000-plus deaths," Fauci told Good Morning America. "The point that the CDC was trying to make was that a certain percentage of [deaths] had nothing else but COVID," Fauci said.
"That does not mean that someone who has hypertension, or diabetes who dies of COVID didn't die of COVID-19. They did."
The report, which was published Aug. 26 and is part of the CDC's standard weekly data update to the public, looks at death certificates and noted thatCOVID-19 was the only cause of deathlisted in 6% of deaths involving the coronavirus.
But some have misinterpreted this figure in two ways, by suggesting that only 6% of COVID-19 deaths are from COVID-19, and that only people with preexisting conditions are at risk of serious illness. Neither of these interpretations is correct, say experts.
A spokesperson for the mortality branch of the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the CDC, told ABC News that death certificates typically list any causes or conditions that contributed to mortality.
"These causes are entered into the death certificate by a physician, medical examiner, or coroner," the NCHS spokesperson said. "Death certificates may have one or more causes or conditions listed, as determined based on the medical expertise of that professional."
The NCHS defines "underlying cause of death" as "the condition that began the chain of events that ultimately led to the person’s death."
According to the NCHS, in 92% of all deaths that mention COVID-19, COVID-19 is listed as the underlying cause of death. There were 161,392 such death certificates as of Aug. 22, the NCHS found. On 94% of death certificates that mention COVID-19, an additional condition is also listed, such as diabetes, hypertension, pneumonia or respiratory failure.
A general view of the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta, April 23, 2020.
While death certificates can help scientists understand trends, they are not perfect. States and municipalities have different reporting requirements, some more rigorous than others.
The CDC and World Health Organization have long stated that people withunderlying health conditions, such as diabetes, hypertensive disease and respiratory disease, are at higher risk for severe cases of COVID-19 and death.
But health experts warn that the suggestion that only people with preexisting conditions will be severely sickened or killed by COVID-19 ignores the fact that45% of Americanshave underlying conditions that put them at risk of developing serious illness if they are infected with coronavirus.
Many patients who landed in the hospital with COVID-19 did not know that they had an underlying condition prior to being hospitalized, medical experts say. Then there are the patients whose contributing causes of death, such as cardiac arrest, were likely triggered by a COVID-19 infection.
Johns Hopkins University, which keeps its own up-to-date COVID statistics, has reported more than6 million COVID infections and 183,000 deathsin the United States.
