Count me as a member of the tin foil hat brigade. Don’t take my word for it though, here’s the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health:
“I just want to be clear in terms of the definition of people dying of COVID. So, the case definition is very simplistic. It means that at the time of death it was a COVID-positive diagnosis. So that means if you were in hospice and had already been given, you know, a few weeks to live and then you were also found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means that if, technically, even if you died of a clear alternate cause but you had COVID at the same time it’s still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone that’s listed as a COVID death doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of death.”
So if you are already dying, but tested positive for COVID at the time of death, it’s counted as COVID death.
That‘s why you can’t compare National death rates. Every country codes is DIFFERENTLY.