But these graphs don't tell a story of collapse. Or perhaps they do but no worse than Spain normally experiences? Spanish excess mortality has peaked already at only slightly above what it peaked at in 2017.

Remember that everything we think we know about collapsed hotspots comes via the media. For every anecdote there are other anecdotes telling the opposite.

The new EuroMOMO site is really much, much better than before (kudos to whoever did that upgrade if you're reading this!). Usefully it now shows cumulative deaths. Compared to 2018 we still have had fewer deaths so far this year even with COVID included. That's staggering. It'll probably change soon given the slope of the graph, but that's really worth thinking about. So far fewer people have died than normal in 2020 than by this time in 2018.