@Clark, currently you are not helping, you are attacking the person not the argument. Stick to attacking the argument because you cannot know what people’s motivations are on the internet. If you feel slighted, man up and stick to the argument. Get over the slight and persevere.
@Steph If you say “you cannot accurately use the figure to say ‘covid-19 has been the cause of 60,000 deaths’, as you would be selectively citing only one of several conditions which contributed to death” then you have to say the same about the figures for all causes of death. Effectively what you are arguing is that the data derived for causes of death from death certificates for all causes of death is erroneous, not just for covid-19. That is a big accusation. What then can we use this data for?
Please allow me to pose a thought experiment. It will be a non covid related death.
Say, hypothetically, I have stage 4 lung cancer and I die from respiratory failure because of a pneumonia which I contracted because my lungs were full of cancerous non functioning necrotic tissue such being a perfect substrate for whatever bacteria caused the pneumonia. So my death cert will read something like this: Respiratory failure:Pneumonia(insert bacteria here):Stage 4 adenocarcinoma of lung. So the underlying cause of death is carcinoma of lung.
So far so good.
My Dad worked for a cigarette factory, my 5 older siblings all smoked and the shop next to my school sold single cigarettes even though that was illegal. It is well recognised that all of these would have increased my propensity to start smoking therefore actually the real cause of my death from smoking related lung cancer lies there. I think that is where Steph is coming from. This is data that moves beyond direct cause and attempts to identify societal causes.
@Steph “But you cannot accurately use the figure to say ‘covid-19 has been the cause of 60,000 deaths”
What then can I accurately say about any of the data from death certification about cause of death. Is all the data that states that so many people died from car accidents or ovarian cancer or alcoholism or knife crime or whatever else wrong? Because that is what you are implying when applied to all the other causes of death.