See, there you go. I'll read Business Insider.
These articles do not support the idea that the COVID death rates are inflated. Like, at all. Let me explain, in as clear terms as I can.
Saying someone with heart disease is more likely to die from COVID does not mean that someone with heart disease cannot die from COVID. It also does not mean that someone who dies from complications caused by COVID cannot be counted as a "COVID death"; indeed, that person's death SHOULD be counted as a COVID death, because that person would not have died at that time if they did not have COVID.
Let's put it this way:
No one dies from AIDS, directly. The virus doesn't kill you. What it does is it destroys your immune system to the point that any number of common diseases are capable of killing you. If you have AIDS, and get pneumonia, you're in very serious trouble. If you died, how would we describe your cause of death? Would we just say you died of pneumonia? Of course not. We'd either say you died of AIDS or of AIDS-related pneumonia. Why do we do that? Because we know that if you hadn't had AIDS, you would have lived. Even if the pneumonia would have eventually killed you if you didn't have AIDS, the timing and manner of your death would be directly attributable to the virus. So you are counted as an "AIDS death." It's similar with COVID. Yes, COVID differs in that it is lethal in and of itself, but it is highly lethal for those whose systems are already compromised by a pre-existing condition.
My family member had problems with their liver. Had they not gotten COVID, they may have eventually died from the condition. However, we would likely have had several more years with them if COVID had not happened. COVID killed them.
Both of these articles are very clear in stating that preexisting conditions put you at a higher risk of dying *from COVID*. You need to work on your reading comprehension.
Sidebar: these articles are more than a month old. We know quite a bit more about the virus now than we did a month ago, so some of the information may be inaccurate and the statistics listed are well out of date. It's also amusing to me that you're citing the second one, considering it uses a Chinese state agency as its sole source.
