After you’ve had a bunch of excess deaths (of the oldest and most vulnerable) wouldn’t you expect it to go below normal after that? Isn’t staying above normal still indicative that lots of excess people are dying?

No country was even close to what you could call significantly vaccinated until mid-2021. The winter 20-21 wave is almost entirely unvaccinated populations.

The winter 21-22 is now mostly vaccinated and, surprise, it’s much lower (and unvaccinated are still the majority of deaths).