To think dying with Covid 19 is not the same as dying of Covid 19?

[Frage]

My grandpa died with heart problems. However, they didn't kill him (he died of something else).

AIBU to think people should stop thinking that 'dying with' CV is the same as 'dying of' it?

Apparently this accounts for some of the disparity in Covid 19 death rates in European countries. In Italy, deaths in which the virus is detected are attributed to the virus, irrespective of co comorbidities. In Germany, the reverse applies and the death is attributed to the chronic condition if one exists, irrespective of the presence of Covid 19. The lack of consistency in testing and assigning cause of death across Europe makes comparison difficult.

To be clear, that is the rate of lethality by age group and gender, if the virus is caught.

This is a useful article

So you’re seriously trying to say that if a person in poor health dies of COVID, they are dying WITH it and not OF it because their health was already precarious and that was the primary cause of death? Nah, sorry, I don’t follow your logic. The COVID induced respiratory failure will have killed them every time.

There's an article on the BBC news site that discusses this. www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

X post.

I find the German approach to documenting deaths utterly bizarre. Why would they take that approach?

I agree with you. It is NOT the same. Yes, the end result is the same awful sadness for the family but dying of is not the same as dying with

What do you mean BalanchineBallet? If someone has COVID-19 what kills them is how it has attacked the respiratory system that leads to pneumonia or organ failure (maybe other issues) but that is what kills them

Like if someone is hit by a car and dies from internal bleeding - it’s the internal bleeding that has killed them but the car caused the death

I find the German approach to documenting deaths utterly bizarre. Why would they take that approach?

I don't know. But the lack of European consistency re cause of death in cases with pre existing chronic conditions makes it very difficult to make any useful comparisons. This discrepancy would explain why Germany's rates are significantly lower than other European countries.

I cannot understand why any death where Covid 19 is present is attributed to Covid 19. That does not make sense at all. If someone dies of a heart attack but have Covid 19 it is recorded as dying of Covid 19. There is absolutely no evidence that had they not had Covid 19 they would have survived the heart attack.

We would never question a coroners decision in any other context. However, it appears that because it does not suit the narrative of Covid 19 killing thousands of people, we are happy to say that if they have Covid 19 it killed them.

I think this is lying to the public and should be stopped. 12% of the recorded deaths in Italy were actually caused by Covid 19. Why would we question this when it is a coroners verdict?

The BBC article refers to an 18 year old who sadly died, and it was reported at the time that he had died after testing positive for C-19. However, the hospital later released information saying that his cause of death was nothing to do with the virus. I do think it’s important that the public is made aware.

Almost everybody dies of cardiac arrest, in the end (I say 'almost' as people who are brain dead are dead legally from the moment the first set of tests is complete). But cardiac arrest isn't put on the death certificate. Only things that contribute to death are put on the certificate. Corona Virus will contribute to death because it strains the lungs and heart.

So if only things that contribute to death are put on the death certificate then that would cover Covid 19. If a coroner believes that it contributed to death it would be there. But 12% of Italy's deaths were caused by Covid 19.

I'm going to start with a disclaimer: I work for the NHS, am waiting to be deployed to the front line, and I know how awful this virus is and the huge impact it has on the NHS. Im following social distancing advice fully. I'm also a lefty .

So, from the start I've struggled with all the stats. You can't compare stats from different countries as you're not comparing like with like. Testing numbers vary widely, how deaths are certified differs.
Scientists have been saying all the way through what is explained in that BBC article regarding the normal / average number of deaths there are over a year. We need to know how many additional deaths there are to the expected death rate over a year to see what the real impact of CV is. And there will be a huge human cost to the lockdown. Livelihoods gone, MH issues exploding, domestic abuse of all kinds increasing.
So, we don't want to massage the stats to fit a particular agenda, but the stats, including the death rate, really have to be taken in context to be meaningful.

We would never question a coroners decision in any other context. However, it appears that because it does not suit the narrative of Covid 19 killing thousands of people, we are happy to say that if they have Covid 19 it killed them.

nonsense, there are constant changes to how deaths are recorded. For example dementia very rarely has been recorded as a cause of death and it has only become more common recently.

It's not clear to me if this means:
a) the person had a life-limiting illness, may have been poorly, but was not predicted to die when they did as covid hastened the death
or
b) the person was very poorly, was predicted to die within a very short timescale, and also tested positive for covid when they died.

It seems to me that a) should be counted whereas b) not necessarily.

@Helenshielding that's because our understanding of dementia has developed and we now see it as a valid cause of death.

Lots of men die with prostate cancer
not many men die from prostate cancer

The description of German reporting above is incorrect. They are also reporting anyone who died and tested positive for Covid 19 even if something else caused their death. This is now how we report other deaths - people with cancer may not survive a flu or the cold but are reported of dying of the cancer, not the cold.

Sorry - not how we report other deaths. There will be excess deaths due to Covid, but according to Prof Neil Ferguson, this will be one-third to half of the ‘Covid’ total.

Before there were effective medicines to treat HIV, it was fatal. But the cause of death in patients with HIV was something else. Pneumonia for example. If a 40 year old type 1 diabetic gets Covid 19 and dies, should their death be attributed to the virus? Without the virus, she could live to 80.

YANBU

I think it's not necessarily the same. Thousands of elderly people get the common cold and it tips them over the edge when they already have problems

around 15% of common colds are a coronavirus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold#Viruses

COVID -19 is not a long term condition so the analogy of heart disease doesn’t work. COrona virus will either in isolation, make you ill for about a week and recover OR you get worse and it kills you within a month (not 100% sure on time taken) or like a previous poster said be the icing on the cake of existing ‘underlying conditions’, the last straw! It doesn’t just exist in the background like a neurological condition or respiratory conditions.
Therefore, there’s no such thing as dying WITH Covid, it can only be die OF.