If so, then we can likewise claim that cigarettes are the cause of death for every smoker and alcohol is the cause of death for every drinker regardless of other health issues.
Consider a 60 year old named Fred born with heart disease that would kill him at 70 if he does not otherwise get sick with something.
Covid Situation: Fred gets Covid and dies in 2 weeks. We can reasonably say that Covid killed Fred even though his heart disease played a role. Fred
would have lived till 70 before his heart disease killed him. So it is reasonable to say that Covid killed Fred.
Smoking Situation: Fred is a smoker, there is no pandemic and Fred dies at 60, due to the interaction of smoking with heart disease, instead of 70, when he would have died had he not smoked.
So, yes, to be consistent, we would need to attribute smoking Fred's death to smoking.
So what? How does that help you escape the accusation that you are misleading people by suggesting the people die
with covid, and not
from it.
The simple fact that torpedoes your argument is that
those people would have lived longer in the absence of covid.