2: it’s the literal cause of their death. Don’t know what you’re getting at with trying to compare that to how much science is dying. Sounds like incomparable quantities to me - be the good scientist you want to see in this world!
Are you sure about that? Last I heard (from Dr. Birx on TV), many states count anyone with a positive test as a “COVID death”, regardless of what the coroner’s report says.
If we counted deaths for any cold the same way, it would be a shocking (perhaps not as big, but still shocking) number.
> be the good scientist you want to see in this world!
Unfortunately there is no place for a good scientist in most fields, you either play the political game or you get frozen out. I would rather fight to tear the whole system down to its foundations, so more people will have the opportunity to be good scientists in the future.
Now try “diabetes and hypertension”, or “lung cancer”, or “temporary immunodeficiency” and you can start to see how dishonest it is to represent the death toll of this disease as a single number, based on an interpretation that generates the largest possible number, and an interpretation not used with any other respiratory disease.
And fascinatingly, you don't worry at all about people who died without test missing from statistics.
> And fascinatingly, you don't worry at all about people who died without test missing from statistics.
Actually “presumed COVID deaths” are included in some states’ numbers, but yes there is some undercounting too.