UK Covid deaths among worst of big European economies

This sounds quite similar to a study published by the Economist about a month ago (and discussed on HN), though best I can tell, independent.

The Economist also found a 5% excess mortality, though on a global rather than UK-only basis.

<https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/05/13/how-we-e...>

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36097246>

The article suggests that it’s best to look at death rates, since it avoids the classification trap.

That might be true. But doesn’t it also make drawing meaningful conclusions hard?

Seems more appropriate that the overall rate/ranking might be used as a “sense check” for whether some other hypothesis is sane.