You can legitimately claim that the pandemic killed, in the US, 273k people.
This number is higher than the official chinavirus deaths because many people died for indirect reasons, like lockdown increasing suicides or lack of healthcare for other illnesses.
Many of the excess deaths may have been from people who were going to die within the next year or two anyway, simply accelerated. We'll have to see if it actually falls below baseline later on, but we might not have that data for another 6 months or so.
But as you said, there are also a lot of deaths associated not just with the virus but the lockdown itself, and it will be tough to ever know the exact number of those. We'll probably see quite a few more cancer deaths in the future because we put all preventative care on hold for a few months because apparently we're idiots.
No, extra people did die.
You can legitimately claim that the pandemic killed, in the US, 273k people.
This number is higher than the official chinavirus deaths because many people died for indirect reasons, like lockdown increasing suicides or lack of healthcare for other illnesses.
Many of the excess deaths may have been from people who were going to die within the next year or two anyway, simply accelerated. We'll have to see if it actually falls below baseline later on, but we might not have that data for another 6 months or so.
But as you said, there are also a lot of deaths associated not just with the virus but the lockdown itself, and it will be tough to ever know the exact number of those. We'll probably see quite a few more cancer deaths in the future because we put all preventative care on hold for a few months because apparently we're idiots.