Covid deaths are "from" Covid or "with" Covid?

[djay]

Many people claim, both for thailand and other countries, that the deaths attributed to covid are not accurate.

Along with claims are many ideas thrown in

• everyone who dies within 30 days of covid diagnosis is classified as death by covid
• comorbidities are the main cause of death and are serious

[djay]

Regardless of claims about comorbidities and death certificates the first thing to understand and explain is that significant numbers of people are dying more than pre-pandemic years and in the months where reported covid deaths are at their highest. 30-40% more

And those deaths are more in elderly

While you can't say that all excess deaths during the pandemic are due to Covid, estimates for Thailand say 70% of excess deaths are due to Covid. So rather than Covid deaths being overcounted they are in fact being undercounted.

The various claims about UK deaths being overcounted (claims of 6-17k covid deaths) have been well and truely debunked.

• BBC Covid: Posts claiming only 17,000 died of virus 'factually incorrect'
• BMJ: David Oliver: Mistruths and misunderstandings about covid-19 death numbers
  For similar claims on USA death certificates
• Scientific American: Debunking the False Claim That COVID Death Counts Are Inflated

By definition a Comorbidity is something determined to be present but not the cause of death. A death certificate with the cause of death from Covid is signed off by a doctor and anything written down as a comorbidity is not the cause of death otherwise it would be listed as that. Many of the conditions listed as Comobidities are not things that are likely to kill you any time soon such as High blood pressure and diabetes.

#TODO: compare cormodities to prevenlence in above 60 age groups in thailand

#TODO:

• definition of a covid death in thailand
• Estimates from UK that most deaths attributed to Covid are from covid
• Estimates from US that show the reduction in lifespan of Covid vs that from comorbidities

[djay]

Appears they have reclassified how they count deaths to include less with preexisting conditions. This doesn't explain why the excess deaths is still so large so there is still likely an undercount.

The CCSA has begun only counting fatalities directly caused by the virus. Previously, it considered every patient "who died with the virus" as a Covid-19 fatality, including patients with pre-existing conditions.
Bangkok Post, 2 May 2022

The briefing on the 28 April 2022 also included this slide showing the difference between what they consider to be deaths from covid and with covid. But also doesn't explain what criteria was used