Sure. It doesn't matter at a national population level.
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Excess deaths is an epidemiological measure and should be used for epidemiological purposes - targeting a public health response.
It seems like quite a few people have confused epidemiology, clinical care, and virology. Each of these fields can suggest data for the others, but can't speak definitively until the studies are actually done.
For example, some have said that omicron is more mild than other variants; but it would be more correct to say that the average experience of omicron in the population is more mild AT THIS TIME.
At this time, many people have been vaccinated or recovered from a previous infection, so without some very particular data, you cannot say that omicron is more mild.
Edit:
> you cannot say that omicron is more mild than another variant to any particular person in a clinical context.
The theory of the matter is that you take what's working and you apply it and discard what's not working. The practice of the matter is that if excess deaths goes up due to drug use increasing during lockdowns, the public health reaction is to increase lockdowns.
---
Excess deaths is an epidemiological measure and should be used for epidemiological purposes - targeting a public health response.
It seems like quite a few people have confused epidemiology, clinical care, and virology. Each of these fields can suggest data for the others, but can't speak definitively until the studies are actually done.
For example, some have said that omicron is more mild than other variants; but it would be more correct to say that the average experience of omicron in the population is more mild AT THIS TIME.
At this time, many people have been vaccinated or recovered from a previous infection, so without some very particular data, you cannot say that omicron is more mild.
Edit:
> you cannot say that omicron is more mild than another variant to any particular person in a clinical context.