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I’m just used to seeing annual flu death counts that look more like this: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html. My first guess would be that it’s an issue of “confirmed” vs. “estimated” - and I’m sure actual covid-related deaths can similarly be estimated to exceed confirmed these days - but I don’t know exactly what the methodology is for each.

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Ah, yeah, these are estimated numbers. Estimated numbers aren't usually used for covid (or at least weren't during the pandemic; this may change); really everything was a bit too uncertain for decent estimates for the first year or so, and there would be political sensitivities to using an estimate as a headline figure.

For some sense of the scale, the WHO estimates 15 million deaths globally by end 2021, vs 5.5 million confirmed in the same period. But generally the WHO uses the confirmed figure; the estimate would rile up conspiracy theorists. I'd expect, given the situation in the US, that the CDC would be even more politically sensitive.

CDC has always provided estimated excess deaths throughout the pandemic. They have correction factors for each jurisdiction by week, according to the typical delays in reporting.

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