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Is the CDC About to Downgrade Coronavirus From ‘Epidemic’ Status?
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The Dispatch Fact Check

Is the CDC About to Downgrade Coronavirus From ‘Epidemic’ Status?

No.

Alec Dent
Jul 10, 2020
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Is the CDC About to Downgrade Coronavirus From ‘Epidemic’ Status?
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Editor’s note: After we published this fact check, Collective Evolution changed the headline of its article and added a sentence discussing the CDC’s prediction of an increasing death rate. While this update includes important context for readers, even with the updated language the article gives a misleading impression of the CDC's reporting.

An article from website Collective Evolution went viral on Facebook with claims that “The COVID-19 death rate across the US has now been confirmed to be so low that it’s on the edge of no longer being qualified as an epidemic.” The article quotes from a CDC update based on data current up to June 27, in which the CDC stated that, “Based on death certificate data, the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia, influenza or COVID-19 (PIC) decreased from 9.0% during week 25 to 5.9% during week 26, representing the tenth week of a declining percentage of deaths due to PIC.”

While the Collective Evolution article does accurately quote the CDC update, it left out the sentence immediately following the above quote, which reads: “The percentage is currently at the epidemic threshold but will likely change as more death certificates are processed, particularly for recent weeks.” To be exact, the CDC anticipates the death rate to increase. The update states in another section: “Mortality attributed to COVID-19 decreased compared to last week and is currently at the epidemic threshold but will likely increase as additional death certificates are processed.”

While Collective Evolution correctly notes the coronavirus death rate has been declining as increased testing yields more positive results, particularly among people with no or mild symptoms, the website is wrong to suggest that the CDC is about to downgrade coronavirus from epidemic status.

Photograph by Tami Chappell/AFP/Getty Images.

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Is the CDC About to Downgrade Coronavirus From ‘Epidemic’ Status?
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Sharon King
Jul 10, 2020Liked by Rachael Larimore

I love your fact checks. This alone is worth the monthly subscription.

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Mary Stine
Jul 10, 2020

Thank you for this fact check. Too many people are desperate for this to be over and hence are

clutching at straws. In my opinion far too many are also over-focused on the death rate, when the real rate of permanent lung damage and other long term effects among survivors and the asymptomatic are not fully known.

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