Lauren Moye, FISM News
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky recently drew criticism and sparked debate when she announced on national television that 75% of COVID-19 deaths have occurred in people who had multiple comorbidities.
The comments came during a Good Morning America interview on Friday. Cohost Cecilia Vega said to Walensky, “I want to ask you about those encouraging headlines that we’re talking about this morning. This new study showing just how well vaccines are working to prevent severe illness. Given that, is it time to start rethinking how we’re living with this virus? But it’s potentially here to stay?”
The originally published interview then shows Walensky responding, “The overwhelming number of death, over 75 percent, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities. So really, these are people who were unwell to begin with. And yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron. This means not only just to get your primary series but to get your booster series, and yes, we’re really encouraged by these results.”
Some have suggested that poor video editing made this quote easy to misconstrue by cutting some of Walensky’s full statement. Writer James Surowiecki has pushed back against the view that the CDC Director was speaking about all COVID-19 deaths, writing, “it’s clear that her comments about comorbidities were referring solely to a CDC study of vaccinated people.”
Here is the unedited version of Rochelle Walensky's comments, where it's clear that her comments about comorbidities were referring solely to a CDC study of vaccinated people, and not to all "Covid deaths," as ppl like Clay Travis have claimed. pic.twitter.com/Z7oJQv3gem
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) January 11, 2022
An unnamed CDC Spokesman confirmed to Fox News that Walensky’s comments were made in this context. This spokesperson claimed that Walensky’s “very encouraging” referred to vaccine effectiveness while the “over 75%” quoted stats from a recently released study specifically on COVID-19 deaths specifically among the vaccinated population.
The study’s summary reveals that death from COVID-19 is rare but heavily impacted by risk factors: “Among 1,228,664 persons who completed primary vaccination during December 2020–October 2021, severe COVID-19–associated outcomes (0.015%) or death (0.0033%) were rare. Risk factors for severe outcomes included age ≥65 years, immunosuppressed, and six other underlying conditions. All persons with severe outcomes had at least one risk factor; 78% of persons who died had at least four.”
However, Walensky’s comments are particularly ill-composed when American skepticism of the CDC has grown throughout the pandemic. An NPR poll in May 2021 found that only 52% of Americans claimed to have a “great deal” of trust in the agency. Views on the accuracy of CDC’s data concerning COVID-19 deaths are also polarizing.
Conflicting comments by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer, top COVID-19 advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Walensky have only added to the ongoing debate on this accuracy.
During recent oral hearings on the vaccine mandates, Sotomayer claimed over 100,000 children “in serious condition and on ventilators” due to a surge in coronavirus infections. In fact, only 3,342 children were currently hospitalized from COVID at the time of her statement according to CDC data.
In a comment to MSNBC regarding the justice’s claim, Fauci stated: “If a child goes into the hospital, they automatically get tested for COVID and they get counted as a COVID-hospitalized individual, when, in fact, they may go in for a broken leg or appendicitis or something like that. So it’s over counting the number of children who are, quote, hospitalized with COVID as opposed to because of COVID.”
Walensky denied this number as being blatantly false in a Fox News interview on Sunday. She then added, “In some hospitals that we’ve talked to, up to 40% of the patients who are coming in with COVID are coming in not because they’re sick with COVID but because they’re coming in with something else and have had COVID or the omicron variant detected.”
This comment leaves it up for interpretation on whether these individuals are being counted as COVID-19 hospitalizations. The CDC Director has announced that the organization will soon release data that will sort out the numbers of those who have died “from” the virus from those who died “with” the virus.
In addition to adding confusion into an ongoing debate about if CDC’s COVID-19 reporting can be trusted, Walensky also took criticism from the special needs community who found her comment callous.
Walensky responded to these criticisms on Sunday with a fresh affirmation of her desire to protect this population:
We must protect people with comorbidities from severe #COVID19. I went into medicine – HIV specifically – and public health to protect our most at-risk. CDC is taking steps to protect those at highest risk, incl. those w/ chronic health conditions, disabilities & older adults.
— Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) January 9, 2022
No comment has been made by Walensky or the CDC to reveal what percentage of the unvaccinated have also died with multiple comorbidities.