Eh, I think we have enough variation in local responses that we'll be able to tease a lot of the data out with a reasonable degree of confidence. We're living

Eh, I think we have enough variation in local responses that we'll be able to tease a lot of the data out with a reasonable degree of confidence. We're living in a world full of counterfactuals, with some places mandating -- and enforcing -- mandates on various public health measures rigorously, and other places not. The pandemic also has a time dimension. To the extent that excess deaths are from deferred treatment and missed testing, we expect them to get worse over time -- people missing a cancer screening in March 2020 shouldn't have resulted in excess deaths in April 2020, in the extreme. "Real" COVID deaths meanwhile we'd expect to follow the peaks and valleys of the infections. It will be a lot of work, but that's what grad students are for.