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Ask HN: How do the doctors know if a person died of Covid or some other disease?

I've read from multiple sources that in many countries if a dead person has covid in his or her organism it is registered as a covid victim. In the country were I live the health minister even said that we will 'treat all deaths as covid suspect'. I do not find a satisfactory official explanation on how they know if the virus has killed them or they died with the virus inside (e.g.: terminal ilness). Do you have some useful links on this?

sloaken 7y ago
So let me run you through an interesting question: Let us assume a person falls ill from some issue requiring a hospital. They go to a hospital but because of all the Covid patients, they cannot get in and die on the street. Does that count? Because of the variable standards and testing methods, I have heard it said (probably on HN), the best standard is to compare last years death rate with this year. And that would be the number attributable to Covid.
- ionantonescu100 7y ago
  I think that may be biased as well (comparing number of deaths to last year). Again, not sure if this applies globally, but where I live at the moment they only treat emergency cases and covid. So if you have some heart affection (or whatever) then you may not get appointments, get regular checks and so on. So basically you can't do prevention. This may cause an increase in deaths because people simply don't go to doctors to keep their health in check.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  > I have heard it said (probably on HN), the best standard is to compare last years death rate with this year. Financial Times article showing plots of that. https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac8... I agree with that excess mortality is likely to capture the true state of things. Or at least it's primary outcome.
giantg2 7y ago
It depends. Some places list patients who died as a coronavirus death if they have the symptoms. Some of this was prior to the increase in available tests. Some of this is to conserve the limited numer of gears for use by the living. It doesn't hurt them to list it a coronavirus death since they can get additional funding for coronavirus patients.
- ionantonescu100 7y ago
  I know of one specific case where the person was a diabetic, went to work (outside, in the sun) and was really exhausted, got home, felt sick, called the ambulance, he died. Then they tested him for covid, he was positive and they recorded that as covid death. I know it would help them for funding, but that is skewing the data on death rate, I guess.

sloaken 7y ago

So let me run you through an interesting question: Let us assume a person falls ill from some issue requiring a hospital. They go to a hospital but because of all the Covid patients, they cannot get in and die on the street. Does that count? Because of the variable standards and testing methods, I have heard it said (probably on HN), the best standard is to compare last years death rate with this year. And that would be the number attributable to Covid.

ionantonescu100 7y ago
I think that may be biased as well (comparing number of deaths to last year). Again, not sure if this applies globally, but where I live at the moment they only treat emergency cases and covid. So if you have some heart affection (or whatever) then you may not get appointments, get regular checks and so on. So basically you can't do prevention. This may cause an increase in deaths because people simply don't go to doctors to keep their health in check.
Gibbon1 7y ago
> I have heard it said (probably on HN), the best standard is to compare last years death rate with this year. Financial Times article showing plots of that. https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac8... I agree with that excess mortality is likely to capture the true state of things. Or at least it's primary outcome.

giantg2 7y ago

It depends. Some places list patients who died as a coronavirus death if they have the symptoms. Some of this was prior to the increase in available tests. Some of this is to conserve the limited numer of gears for use by the living. It doesn't hurt them to list it a coronavirus death since they can get additional funding for coronavirus patients.

ionantonescu100 7y ago
I know of one specific case where the person was a diabetic, went to work (outside, in the sun) and was really exhausted, got home, felt sick, called the ambulance, he died. Then they tested him for covid, he was positive and they recorded that as covid death. I know it would help them for funding, but that is skewing the data on death rate, I guess.