It is transparent, and you can find in official sources what is counted and what is not. But just looking at the global statistics, it is hard to know what's going on. We even have people "resurrecting".
The biggest reason for all this mess is that we combine data sources with different levels of reliability.
- Many things go unreported on week-ends and holidays. So we often see artificial spikes on Mondays, and Tuesdays.
- Hospital deaths are reliable but incomplete, and taken by themselves, with week-ends smoothed out, you see a rather smooth curve that makes sense.
- EMS/EHPAD (nursing homes) deaths are less reliable. Patients dying while showing symptoms are considered COVID-19 victims, even if not tested. It can be reverted at a later date. Reporting can take more time, and in fact wasn't considered at all during early statistics.
- People dying at home are not counted at all, too difficult to keep track of. We do have global mortality stats for all causes though.
- During the peak of the pandemic the testing policy was to test only if necessary for the health of the patient or medical personnel, not for statistical reasons. It means a lot of underreporting.