Read the paragraph above the table under the heading ‘Comorbidities’. It says that 6% of deaths were coded solely as due to COVID-19. On average there are 2.6 comorbidities listed for COVID-19 deaths.
GOT it, I see it now. I have no clue how I missed it - probably keeping an eye on the thread for more info while trying to find the info.
Thank you!
If you look at the actual table of data, at line 230, you will see that 153,504 deaths are coded as COVID-19 (U071).
Of those deaths the majority apparently also have one or more comorbidities. That is exactly what you would expect for an infectious disease that causes the most deaths among the elderly.
When you study any disease it is relevant to consider how the presence of other illnesses or disabilities or even other factors like age affect the seriousness of the illness. So researchers look to see what other diseases are present. In some cases it can be hard to tell what factor is responsible for the death, and there isn't a simple formula for assigning which illness was responsible in every case.
It would be a mistake to conclude that a comorbidity caused the death by itself in most cases, although there may be some instances where a death caused by another illness got misreported as a COVID-19 death if the patient was positive for COVID-19 based on PCR testing at the time of their death. The opposite is also likely, where COVID-19 deaths were missed due to a lack of timely testing resources.
Neither effect alters the larger trends that are obvious in the data. COVID-19 is a serious illness, particularly for older people.