You are absolutely spot on, the difference now in UK is covid will only be recorded as a cause of death if the coroner records it so…. so UK wise you’ll see the numbers slow…. buuutttttt the argument that the nhs is having ( and ill just use my partners hospital as an example ), if a cancer patient caught flu ( for example ) and died, was it the cancer that killed them ? Kind of No … did it help having it ? No …equally did the flu kill them ? Kind of no , but flu and the cancer made it easier for pnumonia to set in ( as an example ) so it’s recorded as a “joint causes of death” with the cancer outlined as the bulk cause .. the length of time somebody has left ( if we presume is more than a few days ) is somewhat irrelevant… so the nhs are arguing ( at least in this area ) that anything that shortens a predicted life span, even in a terminal case … has to be recorded as such …because that is the way the guide lines have always outlined
“ All other important diseases or conditions that were present at the time of death and that may have contributed to the death, but did not lead to the underlying cause of death “
the government want this scrubbed ( and I’m not making this political ) because obviously end of life patients, or seriously Ill people who catch covid (and dying through their frailty ) are distorting the numbers…but If most ( even terminal ) are dying sooner than their predicted time then It has to be acknowledged that something else was there , I don’t know the answer and I’m not judging anybody who has an opinion…. but we record pneumonia with cause of death such as cancers, so I believe we should record covid ……..even if that reflects a high number
