If those people would have survived without COVID-19, does the distinction really matter ? Yes, it matters. No stat records whether they would or wouldn't have

If those people would have survived without COVID-19, does the distinction really matter ? Yes, it matters. No stat records whether they would or wouldn't have survived without COVID-19. That's the problem with them: they just record the presence of the virus, not whether it caused death (which is at any rate a rather nuanced judgement, presumably). The idea this virus is hyper-dangerous is coming from comparisons between these figures and other viruses which aren't recorded in the same way. Incomparable statistics being compared can lead to completely false conclusions. they had 150 deaths this March compared to the usual 20-30 of the previous years But they had far fewer deaths in December compared to the December of previous years: http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/caldo/SISMG_sintesi_ULTIMO.pdf http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/caldo/SISMG_sintesi_ULTIMO.... You would expect deaths to be higher in March than in prior years even if the virus was exactly as dangerous as flu, but pushed forwards by some months, because lots of people survived the winter who in prior years would not have done. So excess deaths will appear higher for now, but if you look at the areas under the graph, it looks a bit like it's just the normal winter surge delayed (so far ... it'll probably end up a fair bit higher, but we don't know that). It seems to me that literally every number being used to support the notion that this is a very dangerous disease is statistically invalid in some way.