FWIW, the FT article appears to be calling out the difference in peak rates “for the same dates”, not for the full year. While the excess deaths are awful, it’

FWIW, the FT article appears to be calling out the difference in peak rates “for the same dates”, not for the full year. While the excess deaths are awful, it’s also important to keep the number in context. The death rate has been decreasing for over a century, and in absolute terms, the death rate of 2020 looks like the year 2000 [1]. [1] https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2021/04/25/is-it-really-true-that-the-u-s-death-rate-in-2020-was-the-highest-above-normal-since-the-early-1900s-even-surpassing-the-calamity-of-the-1918-flu-pandemic/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2021/04/25/is-it-real...