Primary means of COVID-19 death are viral (COVID) pneumonia, ARDS, low blood oxygen levels, blood clots, cardiac arrest, etc...apparently about 6% of doctors/coroners just put “COVID-19” on the death certificate. When you are critical in an ICU/on a ventilator lots of things potentially start going bad with your body, leading to the other “94%” of things mentioned on the death certificates in addition to COVID-19.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#underlying-med-conditions
Cause of Death
As of June 3, 2020, weekly counts of deaths due to select causes of death are presented. These causes were selected based on analysis of comorbid conditions reported on death certificates where COVID-19 was listed as a cause of death (see https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Comorbidities). Some causes with insufficient numbers of deaths by week and jurisdiction were combined with other categories, and one cause was added to the Alzheimer disease and dementia category (ICD–10 code G31). These estimates are based on the underlying cause of death, and include: Respiratory diseases, Circulatory diseases, Malignant neoplasms, and Alzheimer disease and dementia. ICD–10 codes were used to classify deaths according to the following causes:
Respiratory diseases
Influenza and pneumonia (J09–J18)
Chronic lower respiratory diseases (J40–J47)
Other diseases of the respiratory system (J00–J06, J20–J39, J60–J70, J80–J86, J90–J96, J97–J99, R09.2, U04)
Circulatory diseases
Hypertensive diseases (I10–I15)
Ischemic heart disease (I20–I25)
Heart failure (I50)
Cerebrovascular diseases (I60–I69)
Other disease of the circulatory system (I00–I09, I26–I49, I51, I52, I70–I99)
Malignant neoplasms (C00–C97)
Alzheimer disease and dementia (G30, G31, F01, F03)
Other select causes of death
Diabetes (E10–E14)
Renal failure (N17–N19)
Sepsis (A40–A41)
Estimated numbers of deaths due to these other causes of death could represent misclassified COVID-19 deaths, or potentially could be indirectly related to COVID-19 (e.g., deaths from other causes occurring in the context of health care shortages or overburdened health care systems). Deaths with an underlying cause of death of COVID-19 are not included in these estimates of deaths due to other causes, but deaths where COVID-19 appeared on the death certificate as a multiple cause of death may be included in the cause-specific estimates. For example, in some cases, COVID-19 may have contributed to the death, but the underlying cause of death was another cause, such as terminal cancer. For the majority of deaths where COVID-19 is reported on the death certificate (approximately 95%), COVID-19 is selected as the underlying cause of death.
Deaths due to all other natural causes were excluded (ICD-10 codes: A00–A39, A42–B99, D00–E07, E15–E68, E70–E90, F00, F02, F04–G26, G31–H95, K00–K93, L00–M99, N00–N16, N20–N98, O00–O99, P00–P96, Q00–Q99). External causes of death (i.e. injuries) were excluded, as the reporting lag is substantially longer for external causes of death (4). Additionally, causes of death where the underlying cause was unknown or ill-specified (i.e. R-codes) were excluded (except for R09.2, which is included under the Respiratory diseases category). Counts of deaths with unknown cause are typically substantially higher in provisional data, as many records are initially submitted without a specific cause of death and are then updated when more information becomes available (4). For deaths due to external causes of death or unknown cause, provisional data are highly unreliable and inaccurate in recent weeks, and it can take six to nine months to ensure sufficiently accurate estimates. Counts by cause provided here will not sum to the total number of deaths, given that some causes are excluded.
Estimates by cause of death and age at death are weighted, using the methods described above. The total count of deaths above average levels are shown for select causes of death. These totals are calculated by summing the number of deaths above average levels (based on weekly counts from 2015–2019) since 2/1/2020. Negative values were set to zero and therefore excluded from these sums. Because not all causes of death are shown and due to differences in how the average expected numbers of deaths are estimated, the total numbers of deaths across all the selected causes will not match the numbers of excess deaths from all causes excluding COVID-19.
Estimates by race and Hispanic origin are weighted using the methods described above. Weekly counts are shown for deaths due to all causes, all causes excluding COVID-19, and COVID-19. Because estimates are weighted to account for incomplete reporting in recent weeks, counts of death due to COVID-19 will not match other data sources. For data years 2018 – 2020, race and Hispanic-origin categories are based on the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards, allowing for the presentation of data by single race and Hispanic origin. These race and Hispanic-origin groups—non-Hispanic single-race white, non-Hispanic single-race black or African American, non-Hispanic single-race American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN), and non-Hispanic single-race Asian—differ from the bridged-race categories used in previous data years when not all jurisdictions reported race and Hispanic origin using the 1997 OMB standards. Numbers may therefore differ from previous reports and other sources of data on mortality by race and Hispanic origin.