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A global pandemic, many people fighting for their lives, and then there are those trying to downplay the deaths. Let’s take a closer look at these claims.

Some people want to downplay the deaths by arguing that many of the COVID-19 victims didn’t die from the direct effects of COVID-19. Aside from the fact that the loss of a human life is always tragic, regardless of the cause, it’s also irrelevant for the statistics.

Because even if someone doesn’t die from a lung condition but, for example, from a heart attack after a COVID-19 infection, the cause of death is still attributed to the COVID-19 illness. As we now know, COVID-19 is much more than just a lung disease. SARS-CoV-2 is more of a multi-organ virus that affects the entire body. This means that long-term damage and complications can occur, which go beyond the lungs. Even if patients are discharged from the hospital as "recovered," they can still die from the consequences of COVID-19, which might even exclude them from the statistics. This is why the actual death toll is likely much higher, as we can also see from the current excess mortality rates.

And if you can’t quite picture what that means, let’s compare it to HIV. In HIV, it’s not the disease itself that is fatal, but the weakening of the immune system, which makes people vulnerable to simple colds and other infections. People then die from these infections—not directly from HIV, but HIV is still the factor that led to their death.

Closing Words

Whether someone dies directly from COVID-19 or from another factor that was triggered by COVID-19, the fact remains that the disease led to the loss of life. The loss of a human life is always a tragedy, regardless of the specific circumstances. So please stop trying to downplay the deaths.