I suspect that a pattern of not disclosing that statistics that are implied to be factual are actually to some degree ~estimates contributed to the extreme level of polarization over "facts" and "the science", as well as the increasing distrust of the media. Sure, most people don't consider these things too logically, but then if those distributing the facts can't be bothered either, how shall we accurately assign blame for the final outcome?

>how shall we accurately assign blame for the final outcome?

That's a feature not a bug.

Whose to blame for 60,000 people dying in Vietnam?

Whose to blame for Lobotomies winning the Nobel Prize?

Whose to blame for Thalidomide being widely distributed?

Almost anything can be passed off as legitimate without accountability with a concerted effort by 'authorities' and the 'news media', it's even worse in the modern short attention span news cycle.

The true (accurate/correct) multi-dimensional causality is unknown.

Who's to blame for 600,000 dead in the United States?

The average death is 80 years old with two comorbidies so....the natural cycle of life?

There's nothing natural about dying from COVID-19, except in the broadest of definitions of "natural" (i.e. the definition that we developed technology to minimize, control, and avoid).

I don't know how you define Natural.

It's a good question and definitions vary. My working, broadest definition is "That which exists / that which occurs if humans do not use their intellect and ability to cause something else to exist / happen."

Starvation is natural. Death by predator is natural. Death due to exposure is natural. Death due to disease is natural. Tornadoes are natural. A biosphere-disrupting asteroid impact is natural. There are other things that are natural that are positives too, but it's good, I think, to keep in mind that "natural" doesn't always imply "good."

It's looking like the reported numbers may be over-estimated by one or more orders of magnitude....that's the definition of sensational.

This is completely contrary to what "excess death" statistics suggest, which is that we might be under-counting COVID deaths by quite a bit. We've had many more unexpected excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 than can be explained by the official COVID death counts, so it's highly possible that some COVID-caused deaths aren't being recorded as such.

It could be that a bit more than 625,000 people have died in the US due to COVID. Or it could be higher than that, and it may be a couple of years before we know for sure. It's not lower, though. Not at all.