Excess deaths - and maybe a QALY-loss estimate - are the only way to "score" the pandemic and different countries' response to it, but I suspect there will be a lot of writing on "actual COVID deaths" versus "deaths from hospitals deferring treatment due to COVID surges" versus knock-on deaths attributable to the pandemic, lockdowns, unemployment.
We're getting so much interesting data out of this pandemic, both biological and sociological. Which public health measures were effective? Which ones were acceptable to different populations, and why? How does misinformation flow? How well can governments control the narrative?
There are going to be PhD theses built on this for the next ten, twenty years.
Deaths from hospitals differing treatment are also a great assessment of COVID impact on society. If COVID hardly hit a region, then they didn't need to delay surgeries. If COVID ravaged through the country, likely the hospitals were impacted and had to delay surgeries. All excess death is relevant.
Right, but it's important to distinguish excess deaths caused by covid and covid hostpital impacts vs excess deaths caused by lockdown behavioral changes.
Lockdowns and mandates are something a region can instrument independently, and we now have lots of data to assess the benefits/impact of different degrees and types of lockdowns and mandates in jurisdictions that were impacted by the same number of new covid cases.
We're getting so much interesting data out of this pandemic, both biological and sociological. Which public health measures were effective? Which ones were acceptable to different populations, and why? How does misinformation flow? How well can governments control the narrative?
There are going to be PhD theses built on this for the next ten, twenty years.