My niece is a nurse at a hospital in the South (I’m being very vague on location because these hospitals are hammering dissent). She would share emails that the CEO of her hospital would send out to report the COVID numbers for the day. But she noticed a change in his behavior. This is from a group chat:
He completely stopped telling us when patients died. We’re having to find out from the other floors when and who is dying. The numbers are far greater than what is being reported.
Then she noticed some of the doctors now take a different strategy with incoming patients:
They’re not swabbing that many people at the hospital. They’re saying that they could have COVID but that it’s another admit reason (their underlying co-morbidities). When they die, it’s because of heart failure or COPD, SEPSIS, etc. I’m not sure why this is happening.
To add to this, another niece in the same red state who works at a meat-processing plant was sent home for COVID symptoms. She went to the doctor, was tested for pneumonia and the flu. Tests were negative. Was she tested for COVID? Of course not, why would you test her for something that is only a pandemic affecting the entire world? She was told to pretend like she did have it and quarantine for 14 days. What about her wife, shouldn’t she quarantine? Nope, just tell her to wear a mask, she’ll be fine, the doctor said.
This is only anecdotal evidence, but I find it compelling. It’s hard to prove a negative. You can’t prove someone has the virus if you don’t test for it. But my suspicion is many red states are under-counting their numbers and are doing it for political reasons.