Exactly. We already know that they had been upping the number of COVID cases by listing anyone who died with COVID as having died from COVID. Anyone coming in with a fever and a cough would immediately be diagnosed as COVID.
RE: anyone who died with COVID as having died from COVID.
I am not sure if this distinction is significant at all. The above reasoning is used by many to downplay the lethality of Covid-19, but is it not that lethal?
Say, someone had cancer and died while being diagnosed with Covid.
We would like to say that he died of cancer, not Covid. But this begs the question — IF HE DID NOT HAVE COVID, how many years longer could he have lived?
Was Covid not a reason for accelerating the day of his demise?
we can say that Covid did not kill him, cancer did. But was having Covid NOT a contributing factor to his early death? If so, Covid is STILL deadly an we cannot downplay its seriousness.