Death of 21-year-old not recorded as Covid-19

[Orangeblossom78]

Thought this might be of interest

Chloe Middleton: death of 21-year-old not recorded as Covid-19
Source says coroner linked death to coronavirus but hospital took different view.

I thought there was something odd about that case

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/chloe-middleton-death-21-year-old-not-recorded-nhs-covid-19-related

@diddl

That's not how the medical certificate of cause of death works.

It's split into parts, part 1a is the actual mechanism of dying - you cant just put coronavirus in there because it doesn't normally kill people, much in the same way you couldn't but HIV. Then 1bleads to 1a, 1c leads to 1b etc.

Part 2 is for the indirect contributing conditions.

You would need to put:

1a Respiratory Failure
1b Viral Pneumonia (COVID-19)

2 Asthma, Diabetes, etc etc

Very sad that she died. Poor girl.

What DID she die of then @Orangeblossom78 ?

There's no evidence at present that she had Covid. A cough is not proof of Covid, it's just one of the symptoms, but there are many possible causes of a cough.

A cough is a symptom of heart failure anyway

Obviously the virus exacerbated it. Poor girl

There's no proof she had Coronavirus, so you can't really say that.

@DisneyPlus

If you have well controlled heart disease and get CV which triggers heart failure and subsequent premature death, I think CV should be recorded as cause of death.

I agree but you’d have to use the caveat of underlying health conditions as well

But don't forget that coroners aren't doctors, or medically trained - they're lawyers.

My understanding is that they are both doctors and lawyers.

Drug overdoses can cause heart attacks too.

A cough is not proof of Covid, it's just one of the symptoms, but there are many possible causes of a cough.
A cough is a symptom of heart disease,
im in my 50s but knew 3 lads from my school who died from unknown underlying heart conditions .First sign was when 2 collapsed and died and 3rd found dead in bed

Let’s be honest, the media have been chomping at the bit to get a few stories of young healthy people dying of Covid-19. There is an appaling amount if disinformation and general hysteria around this whole issue right now. Now is the time for cool heads and to FOLLOW THE SCIENCE (which BJ tried to do initially but was bounced into panic stations by media/public pressure). Sadly, the village idiots have taken over the debate.

@croprotationinthe13thcentury has summed it up perfectly!

How sad! Feel awful for the family my brother passed away at 20 from a heart attack. It’s such a shock & sometimes you can’t accept what’s happened and look for something else to blame such as COVID19 as a heart attack is thought to be so uncommon at that age

If you have well controlled heart disease and get CV which triggers heart failure and subsequent premature death, I think CV should be recorded as cause of death.
The death, in your example, will have been caused by heart Failure and CV would be a contributory factor.

The cause of death is recorded in Part 1 of a Death Certificate and this may be split into a, b c etc with whatever is written against the lowest letter being what actually caused the ones above it.
Part 2 lists the contributory factors.

In this case the poor girl died of a heart attack. She tested negative for COVID-19 so how can it realistically be listed as a cause of death or a contributory factor?

You can't have a Coroner deciding on a particular cause of death without evidence to support that claim. Chloe having a cough isn't sufficient reason to decide the cause of death was CV. Coughs are present in many diseases.
Maybe (if she'd survived longer) a later test would have shown CV but no-one knows that.

It is tragic though and quite horrific that her family are being vilified on social media at this terribly sad time for them. Obviously they claimed she had COVID-19 in good faith.

Obviously the virus exacerbated it. Poor girl.
Except there is no evidence she had CV.

Has the coroner actually said that they believe covid was involved or is it the family saying they think the coroner said covid was a factor?

It's really irresponsible for the media to keep jumping on these deaths of young people without full facts. Yes, some may be coronairus related, it's inevitable that a few are. Reporting on them all will just spread panic and make the public feel like the actual risk to them is much higher than reality. But when have the media ever been responsible, I suppose.

Well if there wasn’t even a positive result for Covid-19 then how could they record her cause of death as Covid-19? Doctors can’t just lie on death certificates. If they don’t know the full cause they usually put things like cardiac arrest and respiratory failure because it’s at least definitely true.

When Chloe died her aunt posted that her niece had died from CV and had no underlying conditions:
www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-52041709

It has not been recorded as COVID:
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/chloe-middleton-death-21-year-old-not-recorded-nhs-covid-19-related

Thank you for posting. How can sky news get away with posting things like this without actually knowing facts

It's really irresponsible for the media to keep jumping on these deaths of young people without full facts
It's irresponsible of the family to have jumped to the conclusion that Chloe had CV and put it out on social media too.

If I remember rightly, a cough can sometimes be a sign of a heart condition.

Poor young thing

*But don't forget that coroners aren't doctors, or medically trained - they're lawyers.

My understanding is that they are both doctors and lawyers.
*

They certainly don't have to be. But I checked the background of the senior coroner for Berkshire and she has a science background and some kind of qualification in 'forensic medicine'.

However, another aspect is, it seems awfully quick to have had a full inquest, usually they take ages to happen. Was it an actual inquest? With evidence?

Where does it say in that article that she tested negative?

It just says that she didn’t test positive, almost certainly because she was never tested.

And yet heart failure from viral myocarditis is exactly how young people tend to succumb to this disease, and very abruptly.

I’m not saying this occurred in this case, but from the information in that article we simply don’t know either way. Just like we don’t know if that 36 yo who died at home with all the symptoms because they refused to autopsy her. This government has gone to great lengths to stress that everyone who’s died so far has underlying illnesses — this would clearly fuck with that message.

Look at other countries: young, healthy people die of this disease. Not often. But sometimes. The government is not to be trusted on this particular issue IMO.

Apparently healthy young people die unexpectedly very frequently. It's the nature of having 66 million people. Normally it's just a sad story in a local newspaper but when you blame it on covid-19, it's suddenly international headline news based on what someone's aunt said on Facebook.

Apparently healthy young people die unexpectedly very frequently
As I said above 3 in mine and sisters cohort at school died of some sort of previously unknown heart problems, all fit and healthy, 2 were playing football and one died in his sleep.
I also know of a a young lad a couple of years ago who developed flu like symptoms next day died which turned out to be rapid onset of severe diabetes.