I think that's a pretty specious argument though. Other statistics are available (especially excess deaths) that can pretty clearly help show what was going on

I think that's a pretty specious argument though. Other statistics are available (especially excess deaths) that can pretty clearly help show what was going on along with the COVID death numbers (i.e. a significant increase in the number of people dying through the pandemic who most likely wouldn't have died during that time otherwise, in proportions generally tracking more or less to the reported COVID deaths). It's not like the reported numbers of COVID deaths exist in a vacuum to be able to be so sceptical of them!