The Times strikes again …

… Does Questioning Official COVID-19 Statistics Make This Doctor a ‘Denialist’? – Reason.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In covering Jensen's controversial comments about COVID-19 death tallies, the Times focuses on their political utility rather than their validity. "The claim was tailor-made for President Trump's most steadfast backers," write Matthew Rosenberg and Jim Rutenberg. Here is how they summarize Jensen's argument: "Federal guidelines are coaching doctors to mark Covid-19 as the cause of death even when it is not, inflating the pandemic's death toll."

That gloss implies that Jensen thinks federal officials are deliberately encouraging overdiagnosis. But that is not what Jensen says. Rather, he argues that some deaths may be misclassified based on guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concerning "probable" or "presumed" COVID-19 cases in patients who were never tested for the virus. That is a potentially significant problem when such cases account for a substantial share of reported deaths—more than a quarter in New York City, for example.