What does this mean? It means that for the majority of deaths that have been attributed to COVID-19, the new virus may not have been the cause of the death, perhaps it may have contributed to the deaths, or at least is suspected to have done so, but this remains unclear as there is no statement given. This doesn’t mean that those 94% did not die of covid or that covid did not contribute to their death. It’s been well documented that people with comorbidities are much more susceptible and these stats from the CDC further that point.

There have also been many claims around the internet that people who have died in car accidents and other causes have been marked as a Covid death if they test positive, but I haven’t been able to substantiate that information,

We saw this early on in the pandemic. For example, a study published in Italy shows that 99 percent of people who had died so far from COVID 19 at the time of the study had pre-existing medical conditions that made them more susceptible to death. You can access that and read more about it here.

It’s important to note that this is something new, for example, we do not see people who die of a heart attack tested to see if they have the flu. What’s been happening here is that if someone dies of a heart-attack but tests positive for COVID-19, it’s also marked as a covid death. Whether or not covid contributed to these deaths, again, remains unclear.

There have been some eye-opening statements from health authorities all over the world that seem to have emphasized that some deaths that are clearly not a result of covid, but of something else, have again, also been marked as a covid death if the patient tested positive. This has been a common theme throughout the pandemic.

For example, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, recently stated that, even if it’s clear one died of an alternative cause, their death will still be marked as a COVID death.

If you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live and then you were also found to have COVID, that would be counted as  COVID death, despite if you died of a clear alternative cause it’s still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone who is listed as a COVID death that doesn’t mean that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of death. (source)

You can read more about that here.

Another example comes from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Toronto Public Health tweeted in late June that “Individuals who have died with COVID-19, but not as a result of COVID-19, are included in the case counts for COVID-19 deaths in Toronto.” (source) You can read more about this story here.