During the House Oversight Committee discussion on the novel coronavirus response, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said some deaths from coronavirus have been discovered posthumously.
Rep. Harley Rouda asked CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield if it’s possible that some flu patients may have been misdiagnosed and actually had coronavirus.
"The standard practice is the first thing you do is test for influenza, so if they had influenza they would be positive," Redfield said.
Rouda then asked Redfield if they are doing posthumous testing.
Redfield said there has been "a surveillance system of deaths from pneumonia, that the CDC has; it’s not in every city, every state, every hospital.”
Rouda followed up and asked, “So we could have some people in the United States dying for what appears to be influenza when in fact it could be the coronavirus?”
The doctor replied that “some cases have actually been diagnosed that way in the United States today.”
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Here is the transcript of the discussion.
Rep. Harley Rouda: Without test kits, is it possible that those who have been susceptible to influenza might have been miscategorized as to what they actually had, is it quite possible that they actually had COVID-19?
CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield: The standard practice is the first thing you do is test for influenza, so if they had influenza they would be positive... "
HR: But only if they were tested? So they weren't tested, we don't know what they had?
RR: Correct.
HR: OK. And if somebody dies from influenza, are we doing postmortem testing to see whether it was influenza or whether it was COVID-19?
RR: There is a surveillance system of deaths from pneumonia, that the CDC has; it's not in every city, every state, every hospital.
HR: So we could have people in the United States dying for what appears to be influenza when in fact it could be the coronavirus or COVID-19?
RR: Some cases have actually been diagnosed that way in the United States today.
HR: Thank you.