Coronavirus spreads. But don't panic! (topical thread)

[mordant]

Bad example, Covid attacks the heart.

My understanding is that the virus has a multisystemic attack that includes a cardio component. Renal failure seems to be another avenue. I suppose it depends on the specifics of the victim.

If my understanding is correct, it stands to reason to list Covid at the very least as a contributing factor, and I'm sure in many of these overlap cases, it is indeed the primary cause.

The etiology of Covid is now thought to be primarily that of a blood disorder. Heart, renal and liver failure, neurological symptoms and even the lung symptoms are all explicable via disordered clotting and capillary permeability.

It is of course impossible to say with precision whether a person is likely to have died as soon or sooner of some pre-existing condition, X, even without Covid to help it along. But death certificates have always shown proximal cause and complicating factors, and Covid is severe enough that it's probably far more often than not a safe bet that Covid was the precipitating factor in a death with co-morbidities. 

There's nothing unusual or suspicious about this; it's how death certificates have always been filled out.

If someone is 95 years old, frail, has congestive heart failure and diabetes and a half dozen other things, such that they have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, one can I suppose argue that if Covid hadn't helped usher them off the mortal coil, something else would have. But I still think it's perfectly legit to say that if they were Covid-positive, even such an extreme example of frail health, probably would have lived longer without it.