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Those deaths coded as COVID-19 alone may be the result of lazy documentation or an assumption that the comorbidities caused by the virus are not relevant. Ultimately everyone dies of cardiac arrest, for example, however, this is rarely listed as a cause of death other than in acute heart conditions such as a massive heart attack.

The CDC statement was poorly worded and caused confusion across the media landscape and for the public. After downloading the entire data file, I was able to estimate the number of deaths in people with preexisting conditions.

Deaths are coded using ICD-10 codes. These are the same codes used for medical billing and can be viewed online. After eliminating the codes that are typical diagnoses caused by COVID-19, such as respiratory failure, the following data remains.(CDC data compiled 9/2/2020)

These calculations based on preexisting conditions are in the ballpark, but they are not perfect. The reason a range has to be calculated is that the illnesses in yellow can be either acute, and caused by COVID-19, or chronic. Because the chronic forms are prevalent in the elderly, I calculated the rate both ways. The death certificate data puts the ICD-10 codes for acute and chronic illnesses on the same line.

Those shaded in green are ICD-10 codes that are not caused by COVID-19. The line “All other conditions and causes (residual)” contains hundreds of ICD-10 codes. Because the codes include illnesses such as HIV, autoimmune disorders, blood disorders, and other diseases of the immune system, it was placed in the category of always preexisting conditions.

AUTHOR's CONCLUSION:

Reframing the data is probably more helpful in understanding what it actually says about healthy people dying of COVID-19. This update does not change the assessment that many COVID-19 deaths could be ones that would have occurred in the near term even without the virus. To assess the real impact of the virus on the population, evaluating excess deaths over time is the correct metric.