You're not overestimating the problem - and it's not an easy one to solve. Cause specific mortality is hard, which is why measures like all-cause and excess mortality are often used. For example, the whole "With vs. From COVID?" question is, in the actual field, not actually a controversy because this is how we've measured all infectious disease deaths basically forever.
This is especially true for severe cases like this, people in the ICU, etc.
If someone is in the ICU for multi-system organ failure, gets an infection, and then dies of multi-system organ failure, did the infection kill them? Was it a contributory cause? The same sort of question arises as in this case.
This is especially true for severe cases like this, people in the ICU, etc.
If someone is in the ICU for multi-system organ failure, gets an infection, and then dies of multi-system organ failure, did the infection kill them? Was it a contributory cause? The same sort of question arises as in this case.