Prior to this every report I have seen shows ‘excess mortality’. But if the death rate in 2020 doesn’t exceed prior years as this article suggests, it raises a lot of questions about ‘excess mortality’. We can believe total deaths and we can believe tests per million. The rest depends on classifications.
On tests per million the US substantially exceeds all major European countries except the U.K. That almost certainly means the US will show more positives, although in part greater numbers of sick may be generating more tests.
The actual attribution of a death to Covid is fraught with issues....and there are many incentives in the US system to call it Covid, both political and economic.
So we come back to ‘excess deaths’ as the bottom line. And it’s a bottom line in favor of Covid because other diseases have been treated less intensively during the pandemic.
The only counter argument is a ‘within the year’ acceleration....with a later drop below trend. Possible, but it would indicate that group was at death’s door prior to Covid in any case.
The temptation is to treat these numbers as beyond dispute....but many of these numbers have a decision component. And there are lots of motivations. We will know ultimately.....but not yet. Still if mortality in 2020 ends no higher than prior years it raises a huge red flag.