In the case of COVID deaths there are a whole bunch of jurisdictions doing their own counting and reporting. City governments. County governments. State governments. The federal government. I believe there are also non-government entities such as health insurance providers and hospital networks providing data.
This limits how much governments that are reporting aggregates across their small jurisdictions within them such as state and even more so federal government can fudge the numbers without it being apparent to anyone who checks their sources.
Also there is non-death data that should decently correlate with deaths but is reported by different people which provides another check on the death numbers. For example, number of ICU COVID patients should move similar to number of COVID deaths. That data would come from admissions records or transfer records of hospitals.
Really, in the past decade or so we’ve had some of the most egregious, of what were once thought to be, conspiracy theories proven true, and proof that members of the establishment lied, even under oath, to protect them.
Now all of the sudden we are to expect everyone to blindly trust the government blindly? And let’s not get started with party lines!
Likewise, few years ago, big pharma was one of the most hated industries, willing to do business on people getting sick, by any means necessary. Today they are treated as saviors of humanity.
This limits how much governments that are reporting aggregates across their small jurisdictions within them such as state and even more so federal government can fudge the numbers without it being apparent to anyone who checks their sources.
Also there is non-death data that should decently correlate with deaths but is reported by different people which provides another check on the death numbers. For example, number of ICU COVID patients should move similar to number of COVID deaths. That data would come from admissions records or transfer records of hospitals.