[TheCoelacanth]

I believe you are misinterpreting that data. 5% of COVID deaths listed COVID as the only cause. The other 95% list additional causes. In some cases, those are pre-existing conditions like "hypertensive diseases" or "diabetes", but not all of them are. Some of the most common causes are things like "influenza and pneumonia", "respiratory failure" and "cardiac arrest".

Pneumonia, respiratory failure and cardiac arrest are symptoms of COVID. They aren't pre-existing conditions that make COVID worse. They are just more specific explanations about the exact mechanism by which COVID killed the person.