It’s not just grammar….they have different meanings. I wonder why the CDC would use one not the other. Maybe they realize that Covid contributed to their death (significantly or insignificantly) but they are unable to determine that it was the only cause.
Ok. The words have different meanings. So what?
Neither word covers the actual science. You are quibbling over which dumbed down version is appropriate for public consumption.
The general pont is still that covid killed about 1M Americans. This is backed up by statistical models of expected deaths in the US. Fred Smith’s diabetes may have been incredibly important for Fred, but it is irrelevant for evaluating the overall impact of covid in the US.