(No, I wasn't referring to you, I went back and checked https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22945974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22945974) And I agre

(No, I wasn't referring to you, I went back and checked https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22945974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22945974) And I agree with you, I can trivially think of death causes that could go up because of covid-19 + lockdown (heart attacks, suicide, medical neglect), down (influenza, traffic accidents, workplace accidents), and be unchanged (cancer, strokes). So claims of non-covid-19 excess mortality have to be carefully examined. If the official covid-19 death count diverges sharply from the excess mortality of a country, the most rational explanation has to be that that country is underreporting covid-19 deaths.