[trhway]

[IANAD] Diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular issues are among the frequent issues in serious covid cases. If covid is that widespread as some studies suggests, may it be that covid triggers the hospitalization earlier than the heart attack/stroke/etc. would have happened to that person otherwise. US heart attack rate is 2K/day, ie. on a scale of covid deaths and significantly less than covid hospitalizations.

Some other factors to consider - much cleaner air these days, no traffic/noise/rush and associated stress, and you can even hear birds singing through the day. Personally i find it very relaxing to not spend the days in our tightly packed badly air-conditioned to the point of serious sweating (our BigCo. is very big about its "green" energy saving chops) horrendously lit (those lights burn the eyes and make bright spot reflections on monitor, and the half-transparent blinds kill when afternoon Sun gets into those windows) "collaboration and communication stimulating" (read - very stressful) very modern open floor office.

[koffiezet]

I would assume indeed that your first point is the most important-one: people already in bad health, susceptible to heart attacks and strokes also have a much higher chance of getting seriously affected by covid with fatal consequences in the first place.

This is also something you see in statistics, that after any large flu epidemic, the general population mortality figure drops to something significantly below average, especially for people in the 65+ age group.

You can see this very well on EuroMOMO [1] - check out the numbers for the Netherlands in 2018 from week 10 throughout 13. This is a flu epidemic there, and the aftermath.

[1] https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/