Almost certainly the other way around. The most useful measure is "excess deaths" -- those are simply the statistical "excess" of deaths we are currently experiencing compared with the average at this time in years past, and are uninfluenced by diagnoses, coroners, politicians, etc.

Here are some good state-by state graphs [1], and here's a country-wide graph [2]

By any measure, our "excess deaths" since February have spiked enormously, and significantly more than the current official Covid death count.

Some may be due to hospitals overflowing preventing other care. But it's pretty clearly all Corona-related.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronaviru...

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/05/02/exc...

I agree, but the real number would be comparing to lockdown death rates w/o covid.

Over the past few years, the evidence linking human health and overall mortality to isolation and human contact has been increasing. Don't get me wrong I'm staying locked down for the foreseeable future, but I have family and close friends whose mental health I'm seriously worried about. Not to mention physical health from stress, isolation, reduced activity, and can't afford to eat as healthy / stress-eating.

No idea if those are trends that will even come close to direct covid deaths, but we can't make informed decisions considering them.

> But it's pretty clearly all Corona-related.

If you count the above as "Corona-related", then I don't think the number has much meaning in terms of informing public policy.

It actually has been studied and it looks like, in terms of absolute bulk numbers, that at least in developed countries like the US lockdown decreases deaths overall. Here's an Ars article from last week with a summary and some links for some further reading if you're interested [1]. Basically though while suicides go up, a lot of other causes of death plummet. Auto accidents for example a big source of yearly mortality that drop a ton if, well, people aren't getting in their vehicles so much. Air pollution has plummeted [2] as well, another significant source of deaths. People are bored at home and thus work out more, tend to eat better, etc.

Of course as that article and any other responsible ones should point out, the benefits and harms fall quite unevenly, and there is a lot of real misery too. And at some point the economic harm from ongoing lock down would certainly affect more and more people regardless of previous income. But even so as far as society overall goes it at worst looks like a wash right now, and seems more likely to lean towards fewer deaths. So excess vs previous years does look like a valid number to use as some level of gut check given the ongoing poor state of testing.

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1: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/recessions-dont-lead...

2: https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-offers-a-clear-view...

> Hard to know what's really going on with anything with all the conflicting information.

Yes, but you don't have to give up. If you use critical thinking and assess the competing claims and the strength of the evidence for them, it becomes clear that the evidence for inflated counts is extremely weak, bordering on hearsay, and inconsistent with the overall data, while the evidence for extra uncounted deaths is much broader and stronger and consistent with the overall data, so while there is uncertainty about the true numbers, on net it's reasonable to assume more deaths are being missed than overcounted.

Does that really seem reasonable to you?

Should we assume that social isolation, lack of physical activity, change of habits, being laid off a job and worse health care (preventive for example) have no impact on the number of deaths? That's quite a big assumption.

Take a look at: https://fullfact.org/health/covid-deaths/

There are certainly some deaths being incorrectly attributed to COVID-19, but I think the data conclusively rejects the hypothesis that there is rampant COVID-19 over-reporting.