 What's up guys? This is Dr. Ali Hader and I wanted to quickly jump on here and talk about some of Donald Trump's recent comments that he made at a rally in Wisconsin regarding the reporting of COVID deaths in the United States and the insinuation that physicians and hospitals may be falsifying diagnoses and death certificates insinuating that there was some sort of financial incentive for doing so. Now all of this is really a bunch of baloney and it's not really backed by any sort of evidence. Again, another reason why politics and science should never really mix aside from policy. So let's take a listen to some of the things that he said. You know some countries they report differently. If somebody's sick with a heart problem and they die of COVID they say they die of a heart problem. Okay, so first of all millions of people in America and the world have underlying conditions including quote heart problems. Now if someone with a heart problem dies in a car accident or gets shot down and killed by a gunshot wound how do you think that person died from the heart problem or the car accident or the gunshot? Obviously, it's the latter. So why would somebody who acquires an infection that is the ultimate cause of death be attributed to their underlying disorder? Of course, there's contribution of underlying comorbidities and I did a video on this to discuss how death certificates are actually filled out. However, to say that COVID had nothing to do with somebody's death just because that underlying heart condition is ludicrous. In fact, from an epidemiological standpoint, we want to be able to figure out all the types of people who died with COVID. Now, of course, there are plenty of people out there with multiple medical problems, some way more sicker than others. Like your parents or your uncle may have had a mild heart attack, may have a stent, may have high blood pressure, but they're completely functional, right? This is different than somebody who's living in a nursing home with very advanced comorbidities and dementia, etc. Nonetheless, both of those people could be susceptible to COVID infection and both of them could be susceptible to COVID death. But it's super important to be able to figure out who are the people dying from a particular disease, from an epidemiological standpoint, so we can figure out the types of folks who are higher risk and the types of folks who are potentially lower risk. But to insinuate, you're not going to label somebody dying from COVID as a COVID death just because they have underlying diseases is ridiculous. Now, quickly talk about death certificates. When you fill out a death certificate and I've done many of these and a lot of other doctors have as well, there are multiple diagnoses that are listed. So if somebody was admitted to the hospital with COVID and had a pneumonia and had underlying heart disease and maybe some diabetes and they died, a lot of those things are going to end up on the death certificate. So they would be coded as respiratory failure from pneumonia from COVID with underlying coronary artery disease and diabetes. All that stuff is going to make it on the death certificate. And that's how we're able to assess the impact of various different disease states in the setting of a pandemic. And it's important to recognize the people who are higher risk. And this is going to obviously play a role in the public health policy standpoint. Now, this next part really bothered me. Let's have a listen. Somebody's terminally ill with cancer and they have COVID. We report them and, you know, doctors get more money at hospitals, get more money. Think of this incentive. Now, to suggest that doctors get paid more money to label someone with COVID or to potentially falsify a document of a death certificate saying that someone died of COVID when they didn't is absolutely ludicrous. First of all, doctors don't get a dime more for treating patients with COVID, nor do they get a dime more for a patient who unfortunately died of COVID. Suggesting that shows a complete lack of understanding how our health care system works. Now, hospitals do get slightly higher reimbursement for COVID diagnoses. This is because of the CARES Act, the CARES Act that was passed by Congress and designed by the president. And with that says, there is a about a 20% bump for patients who are admitted with COVID, particularly those who are intubated in the ICU. And the reason why the hospitals are getting a little bit more money for those patients is because COVID patients are very expensive to take care of. They're in the hospital longer, they require more resources, they require more equipment. And as it is, the hospitals have lost a ton of money from all their elective procedures during the pandemic. So this is literally so the hospitals have enough money to take care of the COVID patients and still function and stay open. Okay. And there's zero evidence to suggest that they are falsifying documentation, forcing doctors to falsify death certificates. This is a conspiracy theory with zero basis. And in fact, the narrative that said COVID deaths give hospitals more money is also false. It's actually the diagnosis of COVID and taking care of the patients with COVID in the hospital that gives the hospitals a higher reimbursement. Now, these accusations are not only fake news, but they are an attack on the integrity of physicians and healthcare workers across the United States. So again, this is another reason why politics should not be meddling with science. Let the scientists, the epidemiologists, the medical doctors, the ones who actually know what they're doing and know all the nuances and all the moving parts of, you know, a public health pandemic, let them do their thing. All right. And just because it's election time doesn't mean you need to sort of twist the truths and create falsehoods and make accusations to make, you know, the doctors and the scientists and everybody look like the bad guys. So anyway, I said this before and I'll say it again, science is on the ballot. Get out there and vote.