I wouldn't call that a contradiction or clarification. It's yet another confound and there's no reason to believe it cancels out the other ones. In this case,

I wouldn't call that a contradiction or clarification. It's yet another confound and there's no reason to believe it cancels out the other ones. In this case, people arriving sicker at the hospital with a given disease is not necessarily an indication of the likelihood of death with no treatment. For instance, robust young people may wait until they are extremely sick before heading to the hospital, while old or immunocompromised people may go at the first sign of illness. In that case, you would expect death rate to be negatively correlated with how sick people are when they arrive at the hospital.