There is wide understanding it's a mess and that nations use different methods of counting Covid deaths. These are obvious things at this point in the pandemic.

There is wide understanding it's a mess and that nations use different methods of counting Covid deaths. These are obvious things at this point in the pandemic. It's not meaningless. The 20,000 death count in France is not likely to be missing another 50,000 deaths. If they're missing 5,000 deaths, the 20k scale is still extremely useful. In many of the hardest hit nations we can use these counts as floors if nothing else and go from there. It provides a very reasonable ballpark understanding of what's happening in many (not all) nations and states. If a nation is reporting thousands of deaths, we know they're being hit by it - regardless of +/- counts - and can pay closer attention accordingly.