So eventually we are going to have an answer to these questions. There is a notion of "excess deaths" (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm). It will be pretty hard to lie / manipulate these numbers.

We (the US, probably other countries) have pretty good statistics for how many people die every year (and what killed them). We can use this historical data to estimate how many people would have died in a normal 2020. Compare that to what actually happened, and its a pretty good argument for how many people COVID killed.