On Friday, the Albuquerque Journal published an article titled “NM coronavirus deaths hit highest total in months.”

The article stated that “New Mexico reported 20 additional COVID-19 deaths on Friday – the largest single-day total” since May.

Twenty deaths in a day does sound scary, especially when combined with a sensational headline, but it’s misleading.

The Journal admits there weren’t 20 new deaths on Friday. There were 20 deaths attributed to/with COVID-19 over the course of the month and only reported on Friday.

Eighteen of the 20 deaths happened in the last 30 days, and the two older fatalities were added to the state’s death toll after a delay in processing the death certificates.

What are the actual daily numbers? Of course, we don’t know.

Reading further into article, the facts become even murkier.

More than 99% of the deaths classified as “related to COVID-19” have the disease listed as either a cause or contributor to the death on the person’s death certificate, according to a state epidemiology report. The remainder involve a positive coronavirus test but are pending on whether the disease will be listed on the death certificate.

“Either a cause or contributor” is a conflation that tells us nothing about how many of these deaths were actually from COVID-19, but helps to perpetuate frightening narratives for social control.

We know from CDC data that only 5% of deaths counted as COVID-19 list COVID itself as the only cause of death; 95% of deaths had an average of four additional causes, or co-morbidities.

With so much at stake in a state like New Mexico, where bureaucrats and the media continue to use data to frighten the masses into compliance, we need to remain skeptical about the numbers they are using to justify their actions.

It’s easy to imagine that “20 daily COVID deaths” will easily translate into a continued mask mandate and other, more draconian measures from MLG when her current public health order expires on September 15.