A large amount of discussion has been around "what is a COVID19 death?" If someone dies with COVID19 in their system, does that count as a COVID19 death?

There are the clear cut cases where someone dies on a ventilator while testing COVID19 positive. A straightforward COVID19 death.

But there are clear negative cases: Consider someone who has COVID19, but gets into a car crash and dies. This ideally wouldn't be a COVID19 death, because it was clear that the car crash killed the person.

But from here on out... cases get more complicated.

But what about someone who tested COVID19 positive, but dies of a heart attack? COVID19 clearly stresses the body, going on oxygen or other treatment, has been proven to cause long term chronic issues. But do we know for sure that the heart attack was causally related to the COVID19 virus?

There's also the case of long-term chronic issues. COVID19 causes kidney damage and lung damage. If (formerly COVID19 patients) people start dying of Kidney failure next year, it is probably COVID19 related, but with a year delay.

This muddles the death count, and ultimately it comes down to individual medical opinions of thousands of doctors. In the case of the heart attack, we classify it as a COVID19 death if it is the opinion of the doctor. I'm not sure if there's a better solution, but that's how the US works.