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Covid

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What’s the difference between dying “with” covid and dying “of” covid?

28 replies

AngeloMysterioso · 02/02/2021 16:56

I thought “with” means the person had covid when they died but it wasn’t covid that killed them. Is that right?

OP posts:
Beaniecats · 02/02/2021 16:58

That's right isn't it?
Or secondary to major cause of death

Ch3rish · 02/02/2021 17:00

Head over to the dedicated covid topic and you'll find loads of threads about this, lots of opinions

FossilisedFanny · 02/02/2021 17:01

Yes, you could have mild covid symptoms but have a fatal heart attack. You would have died of the heart attack while having covid .

H1978 · 02/02/2021 17:02

Yes it makes sense that dying with means although the person had covid it wasn’t the primary cause of death.

CraftyGin · 02/02/2021 17:02

You could have Covid and die in a car crash - that is with Covid.

If you can’t breathe, that is of Covid.

AngeloMysterioso · 02/02/2021 17:05

@Ch3rish

Head over to the dedicated covid topic and you'll find loads of threads about this, lots of opinions
I am avoiding that topic at all costs, for the sake of my sanity- which I know makes me a bit of a hypocrite by starting this thread but I do not wish to fall down any doom and gloom rabbit hole!
OP posts:
GinasGirl · 02/02/2021 17:07

My gran died last year, she had covid but died from a huge stroke. So died with and not because of covid.

Noteveryone · 02/02/2021 17:11

This is why the death stats are a bit misleading, it’s 100k deaths with covid, some of those were people dying of cancer who contracted covid for example

Ifailed · 02/02/2021 17:13

My dad died following a heart-attack. He also had a broken wrist.

Beaniecats · 02/02/2021 17:14

@Noteveryone

This is why the death stats are a bit misleading, it’s 100k deaths with covid, some of those were people dying of cancer who contracted covid for example
Exactly but 100k died of covid sounds better when you're trying to terrify the population into submission When that doesn't work killer new variant hysterics should do it
StrangerHereMyself · 02/02/2021 17:17

NB that Covid is not just a respiratory disease. It affects all organs of the body and notoriously causes “sticky” blood in some patients, so if someone has a Covid diagnosis and then dies of a spontaneous heart attack or stroke this may quite possibly have been caused by the virus.

Someone who has a terminal cancer diagnosis would be a better example of someone dying “with but not of” Covid.

But doctors do distinguish on the death certificate between conditions which directly led to the death and other conditions existing at the time which did not cause the death, so when you look at the ONS statistics, as opposed to the PHE stats, it’s all separated out.

Nocaloriesinchocolate · 02/02/2021 17:18

Yes, "with Covid" must mean it's not the cause of death. By analogy, my Dad died of cancer but he had glaucoma so he died with glaucoma but that wasn't the cause of death

Springersrock · 02/02/2021 17:19

My Mum’s friend died of breast cancer in November, but had tested positive for Covid while in hospital so died with Covid.

bathorshower · 02/02/2021 17:20

Surely it's difficult to tell - someone with terminal cancer at the end stage of life is definitely 'with', a fit person in their 40's with no underlying conditions is 'of'. But it must be a sliding scale in between, with a fair bit of guesswork as to what the cause really is.

AngeloMysterioso · 02/02/2021 17:21

The reason I ask is because on the Captain Tom (RIP) thread on AIBU, lots of people talking about how sad it is that covid killed him, but the BBC article says he died with covid.

OP posts:
redsquirrelfan · 02/02/2021 17:23

Well he had pneumonia, but I don't know if that developed from covid, or if he was already ill when he caught covid.

Abraxan · 02/02/2021 17:23

With covid -they had a positive covid but it wasn't necessarily the main reason they died.

Of covid - it was the main cause of the person's death.

My nana died with covid in May. However it wasn't the cause of her death - that was general frailty and ill health, following a number of small heart attacks and other issues, whilst she was covid positive at the time of death it is not mentioned on her death certificate at all, not even as a secondary or contributing factor.

My friend's father has recently died after testing positive with covid. His,covid lead to 'covid pneumonia' and he died shortly after. So for him covid was a main cause of death, he did isn't just die 'with covid.'

EmbarrassingAdmissions · 02/02/2021 17:25

There are many articles by currently active doctors who explain that they report a primary cause of death (eg, COVID–19) and (where relevant) an underlying cause of death.

Eg, see Prof. David Oliver - section: How doctors certify death

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/covid-consultant-confronts-claims-conspiracy-19393667

StrangerHereMyself · 02/02/2021 17:25

I think I read that the reason why he didn’t have his vaccine was that he already had non-Covid pneumonia at the time he was meant to receive it.

Rowenasemolina · 02/02/2021 17:30

@AngeloMysterioso

I thought “with” means the person had covid when they died but it wasn’t covid that killed them. Is that right?
No. It means they had Covid and they died. Probably of Covid. But it’s just a way of phrasing it to avoid argument. People are always going to say, but hang on , how do you know that 2% or 10% or 50% or whatever number, we’re not about to die if something else anyway? So to stop those silly pedantic arguments.
Rowenasemolina · 02/02/2021 17:32

No, everyone who dies OF Covid, is officially called dried WITH Covid. Everyone , it’s just a pedantic quibble

CoffeeandCroissant · 02/02/2021 17:36

@Noteveryone

This is why the death stats are a bit misleading, it’s 100k deaths with covid, some of those were people dying of cancer who contracted covid for example
There are 3 different stats - first stat is the one reporting all deaths within 28 days of a positive test. These are are all 'with covid', but the vast majority of them will be of covid.

Second stat - the ONS stats are based on death certificates, of these around 90% had covid as the leading (main) cause of death and the remaining 10% had it as a contributory cause. Arguably all these deaths are 'of covid', as it was a factor leading to the death. In 90% of cases it was definitely 'of covid' as that was the main cause of the death.

The third stat is excess deaths, this includes all excess deaths without attributing cause, but again the vast majority of these are covid deaths.

The first stat (28 days) has the lowest total number, but is already over 100,000; the second (ONS) is higher still, so we know that over 100,000 deaths were 'of covid' as this is on the death certificate, the excess deaths figure is the highest of the three totals (slightly higher than the ONS total).

Moondust001 · 02/02/2021 17:45

The vast majority of people die "with Covid present" not "of Covid". Contrary to the impressions being given by so many, Covid itself is NOT a killer virus. Ebola is a killer virus. And believe me, having seen Ebola at work, a killer virus would have wiped out most of the population by now!

This will be rather simplistic, and I don't mean to be patronising if anyone thinks it's too simple. Viruses are "animals" just like us. They exist for the same reasons that any creature exists - to reproduce and to survive and to thrive. The best way for viruses to do all of these things is to NOT kill their hosts. However, if the host is already weakened by something else, be that age or illness, the additional burden that the virus puts on that persons body may, in some circumstances, be enough to bring about their death. It is still rarer that it does, but it is nature in action - please don't anyone take this the wrong way, but it is nature culling the herd. At one time the common flu viruses did exactly the same thing and were probably far more "dangerous" than they usually are now - but flu viruses are still very dangerous to some people, and every year they kill some healthy and normally fit people. So the virus isn't trying to kill people, it simply puts an extra burden on them when already not 100% - and that is dying with Covid present.

I do not wish to minimise Covid in any way, but a large part of its impact is due to the fact that pretty much nobody has any resistance to it at all, but equally the fact that it features in very few deaths, statistically speaking, is a measure of how deadly it isn't!

Dying of Covid is rather rare - really rare. It means that the only attributable cause of death is the Covid infection - there are no co-morbidities and absolutely no obvious other factors that might have caused the death. And by that I mean that there is no diagnosis of anything else and there would be no normal expectation of death in the person. That doesn't mean there is no other factor, just that we don't know about it. I recall a young and fit 32 year old mum "dying of swine flu" in 2008 - except that the autopsy showed a previously unknown heart defect that was a ticking time bomb. It had never affected her at all, it wasn't known about, and she might have lived to a ripe old age without any problems... or dropped dead on the spot for no reason at all. The swine flu was that added factor that put too much strain on her body.

It really is very sad that Captain Tom has died and he was an inspiration to many. But the fact is that he was 100 years old, and anything could have cause this - or nothing at all. From what I can see of the information, he had already been in hospital and was extremely ill for some weeks from pneumonia, and Covid was the added burden. At his age, despite his youthful attitude, the original illness was, in all probability, enough to to cause his death - he was old and it really doesn't take much.

To be honest I think the take away from his life is (a) we could all wish to live that long and (b) actually be youthful in outlook and challenging as people right the way until the end. Covid nor anything else "kills" that humanity - we can do that all on our own without the help of any virus.

Cherrypie32 · 02/02/2021 18:10

Moondust great post Thankyou

fiveoldteddies · 02/02/2021 18:15

[dc learn at school, in biology lessons, virusses are not living"]