How I talk to the victims of conspiracy theories — BBC News

I feel this is needed now more than ever in this politically charged world. I'd be foolish to think on November 4th the world will wake up and be rational, but I feel we will remain in a world where even a disease has political ramifications. In my many yrs of life, I have been apolitical. Wrong. Antipolitical. I avoid discussions on politics like I avoid discussions about who you sleep with and who you pray to. But now we have a disease killing all peoples just for breathing the air or touching a surface, and for (to me) unclear reasons, people have made it political. One side accuses the other of inflating or underreporting numbers. One side claims it's all fake. Etc, etc, etc.
I am a professor of emergency medicine in NY. I researched and wrote on this disease first in February of 2020, and then in March, and have been the COVID editor of all new research and information presented to Emergency Medicine's evidence-based journal ((ebmedicine.net). I am not trying to promote me or my work, but just to give you my background on this subject. BL- It don't get more SME than me.
I'd ask you to take my word, but it's clear some of you will listen to nothing not spoken by one of your "trusted" sources. However, I will try...
COVID does not directly kill people. Like AIDS, it causes a syndrome that leads to people's deaths. Unlike AIDS, it can use whatever problems (co-morbidities) you had against you and kill you with it. So if you had well-controlled diabetes and then got a bad case of COVID, you can die from complications from diabetes, that COVID caused. Insert obesity, hypertension, asthma, heart disease, etc etc.
If the death certificate says you died from COVID it is not over attributing or counting it, it is merely stating the fact. Ironically, the scientific community has claimed (IMO rightfully so) that we are underreporting COVID deaths because when someone dies of a stroke (CVA) many people are just listing stroke as THE CAUSE OF DEATH, even though COVID might have caused the stroke. Remember, for 6 of the now ~8 mos of this disease, testing has been scarce in the US and COVID confirmation was (and still is) woefully lacking. So many doctors leave it off. Do hospitals get more money if they have more COVID related expenses? They probably do. But do you really think some administrator is going around telling doctors to write COVID on all death certificates? Well I work in one of the busiest hospitals in NYC and am in touch with people at all the other main hospital systems in NYC, especially those hit the hardest by COVID. If this abuse was happening, as a former lawyer and ethicist, I'd probably be made aware.
Now for those of you unaware of how medicine works (and the American system of reimbursement) your government rewards bad news better than it does good news. Right or wrong, it is what it is. If my trauma center sees more gunshot and stabbing victims, it gets more funding and continuance of its trauma certification. If my hospital sees more strokes and/or heart attacks, guess what? They get more money. It is how capitalism in medicine works. Unfortunately, hospitals do not get paid for the number of people they get to lose weight, stop smoking or drinking, and other true life-saving measures as compared to treating diseases. However, this does not mean there is a conspiracy to make every toothache a heart attack or stroke just to get more money. I realize some people are distrustful of basically anyone other than themselves, but a little common sense and reality should guide your mind.
Those of you who feel that your arguments have merit, because your "friend", relative, or whoever told you, really need to learn about fallacies of underrepresentation and opinion. Your neighbor or friends' experiences do not make a basis to extrapolate data from their one experience. Now if their jobs are to compile and research information, then please post their information so we can look at it in a scientifically sound manner. I was going to share several articles on the causes and background of COVID related deaths, but I'm not sure it would help anyone whose mind is subscribed to conspiracies and misinformation. However, for those willing to open their minds and challenge a one-sided political narrative, then here are just a few of the 10000s of scientific sources without any politics or motives other than to deliver the truth through vetted and peer-reviewed processes.

DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiaa578.- Post-Mortem Findings in Italian Patients with COVID-19 - a Descriptive Full Autopsy Study of cases with and without co-morbidities

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.03.071- Insight into 2019 novel coronavirus - An updated interim review and lessons from SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV

DOI: 10.1007/s00 [login to see] 3-8- Post-mortem viral dynamics and tropism in COVID-19 patients in correlation with organ damage

DOI: 10.1111/his.14201- Insights into pathogenesis of fatal COVID-19 pneumonia from histopathology with immunohistochemical and viral RNA studies