Re: counting. From my perspective, the excess death count is the only sensible count. That generally comes up with numbers significantly higher than the usual numbers.

Also, to repeat myself from so many past threads in so many places: the issue with COVID is a public health problem, not a personal health problem. The risk of death can be (and is) fairly low, but the risk of hospitalization is high enough that the primary public health care motivation is not preventing death from COVID but "flattening the curve" so that health care systems are not overrun. When that happens, normally non-fatal accidents and diseases become vastly more serious, and the overall risk and demographics of risk expand dramatically. This is why it makes little sense to focus on the mortality rate for COVID - that was never the central issue.