Excess mortality has nothing to do with testing, you are entirely correct there. However, most Covid deaths are counted as deaths post a positive test. Therefo

Excess mortality has nothing to do with testing, you are entirely correct there. However, most Covid deaths are counted as deaths post a positive test. Therefore, the tests provide the denominator for potential deaths. The US has lots of testing (though probably not enough) and an overall poor response to the pandemic, causing the 25%/5% statistic, and hence my point.