Trump pushes medical conspiracy theory

[Magical Realist]

https://www.businessinsider.com/ama-slam...yjGOM5G2Kk

"The American Medical Association hit back on Friday after President Donald Trump falsely suggested doctors are inflating COVID-19 death counts for money, as cases continue to climb across the country.

During a Michigan rally on Friday, the president lamented the increase in coronavirus cases, blaming it on an increase in testing, a claim his own testing czar has disputed. He then said doctors are improperly citing COVID-19 as a cause of death in some cases for monetary gain.

"You know, our doctors get more money if someone dies from COVID. You know that, right?" Trump asked the crowd. He characterized US doctors on the frontlines of coronavirus as saying, "When in doubt, choose COVID," for the cause of death.


The AMA, the country's largest association of physicians, responded to the accusation in a strongly-worded statement that did not address the president by name. The statement said frontline healthcare workers have risked their lives to fight the virus "because duty called and because of the sacred oath they took."

"The suggestion that doctors — in the midst of a public health crisis — are overcounting COVID-19 patients or lying to line their pockets is a malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided charge," Susan Bailey, president of the AMA, said.

"Rather than attacking us and lobbing baseless charges at physicians, our leaders should be following the science and urging adherence to the public health steps we know work — wearing a mask, washing hands, and practicing physical distancing," she added.

The statement also noted that coronavirus cases are currently at record-high numbers. According to The COVID Tracking Project, the US daily case number broke records again on Friday by surpassing 97,000 cases."

[Syne]

Since it is true that hospitals and doctors get more money from Covid patients (perverse incentives) and they feel they "have risked their lives", it only makes sense that some would feel they deserve more. And there have been many stories of people being diagnoses, including on death certificates, when they were never even tested. There's also a huge motive to deny this, for fear of damaging public trust and the specter of higher malpractice premiums. Many states have reported deaths that were only suspected of Covid, without verification, and the CDC test has used too many replication cycles to weed out viral loads so low they were never symptomatic nor a spreader.

There is zero evidence that masks work, as there are spikes in cases all over the world, in places that have mandatory mask and distancing requirements.

Not to mention that the AMA and Business Insider are both rabidly leftist.