No. This isn’t the definition used in the official COVID death statistics published by the ONS. That’s based on a stricter definition, requiring that COVID-19 a

No. This isn’t the definition used in the official COVID death statistics published by the ONS. That’s based on a stricter definition, requiring that COVID-19 appear as a cause of death on the death certificate. The definition listed here is used only by the Health Security Agency (formerly Public Health England) to provide a useful point in time metric for the severity of the pandemic across a range of data sources. The benefit is that the data may be available faster than the official ONS stat, allowing for earlier interventions. With information like this it’s always important to dig deeper into the context of who, what, when, and why, rather than taking it at face value. Especially when in this case both the HSA and ONS quite openly and transparently explain both their criteria and reasoning. All else being equal it seems a decent proxy. If you died of an illness within 60 days after testing positive for COVID, it’s almost certainly a contributing factor if not the main cause.