Nope, that’s not a sarcastic headline and yes, you did read it correctly. I really did get fact-checked by FactCheck.org for a tweet I made on March 26 claiming that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stopped releasing data on vaccinated vs unvaccinated deaths and hospitalizations. Now sure, we all make mistakes, but this was a big one, especially because it happened to go viral. Therefore, I feel I owe an obligation to readers and those who follow me on social media to clarify and flesh out this issue, and it’s more complicated than you might initially think.
Here’s what I tweeted:
“The CDC is no longer releasing data comparing vaccinated vs unvaccinated deaths & hospitalizations. But don’t worry. I’m sure it’s just an oversight.”
Now, I want to explain - not excuse - what prompted me to write it. I was watching Fox News host Dan Bongino interview Dr. Aaron Kheriaty on “Unfiltered With Dan Bongino.” During the interview, Kheriarty stated that the agency “is no longer releasing their data comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated cases, hospitalizations and deaths.” He then went on to conflate that claim with facts from a well-known February report from The New York Times about the lack of overall transparency from the agency.
“A spokesperson for the CDC told the New York Times a few weeks ago, the reason that they are not releasing the data anymore, that we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, is they have worries it’s not ready for prime time because it might increase vaccine hesitancy,” Kheriarty said. “So what’s going on here? Why are these basic metrics being withheld from the American people?”
The problem, however (which I did not notice at the time), is that while The New York Times did report that the CDC has been slow to release “[d]etailed, timely data on hospitalizations by age and race” that “would help health officials identify and help the populations at highest risk,” Kheriarty claimed that the agency STOPPED releasing data they had previously been releasing, which has a whole other realm of implications, obviously.
When I composed the tweet, I also had in mind the fact that former NYT reporter and Team Reality OG Alex Berenson made a similar contention on his Substack several months ago, claiming the agency stopped releasing data in October 2021.
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From Berenson’s post:
The CDC’s last public weekly update came the week of Monday, Oct. 18, with data from that day. At that point, the page showed almost 11,000 deaths and more than 30,000 hospitalizations in vaccinated Americans. Those numbers hung around until Nov. 1, when the page was suddenly eliminated.
Why? Just spitballing here, but maybe it had something to do with the fact that from Oct. 4 to Oct. 18, deaths of vaccinated people jumped more than 4,000 and hospitalizations almost 14,000.
(Despite this error, you should definitely read the rest of Berenson’s post because he highlights many other issues with Covid data that go beyond this.)
Researching this more deeply with the help of the person behind the excellent HOLD2 Twitter account, it appears that the data - or at least the data from the limited jurisdictions that make it available - didn’t stop getting released entirely. It just got moved to a more (seemingly) obscure place that most of us, including Berenson, weren’t aware of. When FactCheck.org reporter Catalina Jaramillo emailed me to ask for the source of my tweet, however, she pointed me to where she (and, to be fair, most reasonable people) would think the data lived. But those are the rates, not the raw numbers. And Berenson has all kinds of problems with rates:
“In terms of calculating rates, they don't adjust for comorbidities or health status, which is crucial - a large percentage of the Covid deaths in unvaccinated elderly people are in people too sick to be vaccinated,” he told me. “Further, they don't break out vaccinated but unboosted (they say ‘at least’ a primary series, which is going to include the boosted). They don't also include anyone who is infected (or dies after an infection that begins) within 14 days of the second shot; and they seem to put anyone who's infected within 14 days of the booster in the ‘primary series’ group. Also, at the state level the data are wonky, the states acknowledge that their matching procedures aren't great and they will default to saying someone is unvaccinated if they can't find a name match in the registry. Countries with national health-care systems like Britain don't have this problem. And, oh yeah, it's not the whole country.”
But the data, and even the rates with all the parameters above that turn those in their favor, are going to continue to swing as vaccine efficacy declines over time. Just glance over HOLD2’s Twitter account, which takes the raw data into account, to see how it’s already happening.
I wrote this to the fact check reporter and I’ll repeat it here: “Although rooted in the contention that the agency isn't being nearly as straightforward or transparent or comprehensive as they need to be, my tweet could be interpreted as misleading and that's the absolute last thing I want to do - so I've removed it.”
Now, to some implications. First, as the numbers continue to skew in a way that even the powers-that-be won’t be able to hide, an incident like this will make it even more difficult to stop releasing the numbers even if they wanted to. So I guess that’s a small silver lining. Second, and most importantly, when we’re shown to be factually incorrect, we should admit our mistakes and apologize. I’m not talking about apologizing for hurting some snowflake’s delicate feels, but correcting an obvious factual error that could hurt our credibility. We here at Team Reality should be entirely above board and as straightforward with the truth as humanly possible. Otherwise, why would anyone trust us when we’re right? (Which, to be fair, is MOST of the time.)
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