1/ A lot of people are jumping on the @cdcgov statement just 6% of US #Covid deaths list #Covid alone as the cause. But to use that figure to claim "COVID ONLY KILLED 9,000 AMERICANS" is wrong. Other causes include conditions like pneumonia, which can clearly be Covid-related...

2/ A better way to use the data may be to TAKE OUT causes clearly unrelated to #sarscov2. I'd include Alzheimer's, sepsis, dementia, cancer, and unintentional injury. (Let's be conservative and leave off kidney failure, diabetes, obesity, and strokes.)

3/ The other advantage of leaving off those conditions is that there is significant overlap in, say, diabetes and obesity (and the CDC reports the average COVID death certificate included 2.6 other conditions). That's less likely for the conditions I included...

4/ So, okay, the five conditions on my list were on about 50,000 certificates (assuming no double counting). The accidental deaths and poisonings alone were 5,000.

Those deaths - at a minimum - are much more likely to fall in the WITH rather than FROM #Covid category...

5/ It would also be nice if @cdcgov offered more specific information about the 77,000 deaths that had other "unspecified" conditions listed. But this is a start, at least - and it's in keeping with the other steps the CDC has taken recently.

Source: http://cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm?fbclid=IwAR2-muRM3tB3uBdbTrmKwH1NdaBx6PpZo2kxotNwkUXlnbZXCwSRP2OmqsI