This article explores the emergence and development of Death Certificates as a means of establishing the cause of death for individuals and populations. The difficulty in choosing which disease caused death when several are described on the Certificate explains why the number of COVID-19-related deaths has been difficult to determine. This problem also draws attention to the dominant biomedical explanation for the cause of death that both promote and circumscribe what can be recognised as a valid cause.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行和死亡原因


本文探讨了死亡证明作为确定个人和人群死因的一种手段的出现和发展。当证书上描述了几种导致死亡的疾病时，很难选择哪种疾病导致死亡，这解释了为什么与 COVID-19 相关的死亡人数难以确定。这个问题也引起了人们对死因的主要生物医学解释的关注，这些解释既促进又限制了可以被认为是有效原因的因素。