But - as you say - it is related.

It's like a disruption from an earthquake. They may not have been killed 'by' the earthquake - but the earthquake had a knock-on effect rendering services unavailable increasing the overall deaths.

I think what's more important is the net-deaths vs the gross as defined by Scott Adams who is eschewing 'reported numbers' for deaths higher than the historical average (which makes sense - if the numbers spike overall compared to the usual mortality rate - that's the actual viral impact). It's the 'extra' deaths that are of interest over and above the normal death-rate. The 'way' they died isn't as important as 'how many more died'.