I'd be shocked if this was anywhere near reality. Covid hasn't been an issue any of the hospitals that I work at to the point that many doctors and nurses don't even bother with N95 masks when seeing covid patients.

It's more likely this is people dying with covid and not from covid. If someone covid positive has a stroke or heart attack which column is that being written in?

I have had to write my share of death certificates, and most docs will write the easiest thing that gets the corner off their back. These statistics may be broadly true

medicine is unlike technology in that it has a much much higher level of human error in data points (intentional or not).