If it helps to put your mind to rest, two recent studies ( one in the US and one in Spain) have put the death rate from Covid at about 0.68 percent. 6.8 people in every 1000 who catch it die. This is about twice the rate of the seasonal flue
Just take sensible precautions and you should be fine.
I hope this isn't overly insensitive but did her friend have co-morbidities? I'm not trying to pound any drum but
people have been found to be Covid positive after dying of other causes. They still get counted as Covid deaths.
Are you sure you aren't pounding a drum? Seems you are trying to minimise the seriousness of the virus?They were still counted as Covid deaths. I think we can safely assume that Covid deaths aren't undercounted.
By the way, worldwide there have been 245 million cases and 4.98 million deaths, so of each 100 who catch it more than 2 died.
The rates vary - eg Israel has a low death rate - and treatments hopefully will continue to improve. However there are certainly parts of the world where covid deaths have not all been recorded and parts of the world with very low vaccination rates so further dangerous mutations are entirely possible.
As for people dying of other causes being counted as covid deaths - no. WHO has clear reporting protocols which Australia and most countries follow:
Definition of deaths due to COVID 19
A death due to COVID-19 is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case, unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to COVID disease (e.g. trauma). There should be no period of complete recovery from COVID-19 between illness and death.
A death due to COVID-19 may not be attributed to another disease (e.g. cancer) and should be counted independently of pre-existing conditions that are suspected of triggering a severe course of COVID-19.
Deaths due to COVID-19 are the ones that are counted in cause of death data collection (for the purposes of COVID-19 death reporting).
NOTE: Deaths due to COVID-19 are different from COVID-19-related (or COVID-19–associated) deaths. These may be deaths due to accidental or incidental causes, or natural causes when COVID-19 is not identified as the underlying cause of death according to ICD coding guidance (see Section 4.2)
Guidance for certifying COVID-19 as a cause of death: In view of the need for accurate COVID-19 statistics, it is important to record and report deaths due to COVID-19 in a uniform way.