So now I no longer believe the politically motivated statistics.
That is 1000% true. The statistics you see on the news are total BS, and they are intended to support a particular political narrative.
No one knows how many people died from covid. All along there has been a confusion between dying FROM
covid, and dying WITH covid. Hospitals have been incentivized by the federal government to include the diagnosis code for COVID-19, and in exchange for that, they get a kicker of 65% of their average outlier payment added to every claim where they do this. (This is on cms.gov - the official medicare website) Problem is, no one is being allowed to audit the claims against the medical record to verify the validity of the diagnosis. Until that is allowed to happen, the government is paying hospitals to drive the statistics they want, regardless of how correct they may be.
No one knows how many people have had covid. They only know how many people reported with symptoms, were tested, and tested positive. In some states, they don't even care about a test result (like Ohio). All you have to have is
covid like symptoms. Since covid shares some symptoms with the common cold, the seasonal flu, and allergies, relying solely on symptoms doesn't tell you anything definitive. Given the poor accuracy of the tests (which is why Ohio quit counting test results in May 2020), they mean next to nothing. Furthermore, people who simply isolated themselves and didn't seek medical help, aren't counted at all in the totals.
Bottom line, all the reported statistics related to covid are total nonsense.