Kansas City Star: “Macon County Coroner Brian Hayes handles the death certificates for this cattle, corn and soybean region of 15,000 in north-central Missouri, near Kirksville – roughly 130 to 140 deaths each year. That includes certifying the deaths of the few dozen residents who have succumbed to the coronavirus. And in some cases, it has meant excluding COVID-19 from death certificates. COVID-19 is as much a political issue as a personal tragedy for some families. They don’t want the virus on any official record for their dead loved one.”
“So the solution: Leaving COVID-19 off the death certificate entirely – an ethically questionable approach frowned on by much of the U.S. medical community as it tries to ascertain the the deadly extent of the pandemic in rural sections of the country and halt its spread. The Macon County coroner omitted COVID-19 on at least a half-dozen death certificates in cases where another major factor – pneumonia in an elderly patient or ‘you know, grandma had one lung and smoked all her life,’ for example – could be justified as the sole cause of death. ‘A lot of families were upset. They didn’t want COVID on the death certificates,’ Hayes said in an interview. ‘I won’t lie for them, it’s gotta be true, but I do what pleases the family.'”