| No, it's not. The graph shows mortality rates without cause. Excess mortality rates are not that high at present, meaning that the total number of deaths is not that much above the expected death rate based on historical numbers. But imagine the "extreme" case where excess mortality is zero - that is, even with covid19, about the same number of people die every day. That would mean, presumably, that since covid19 causes some deaths that would not have happened historically (it doesn't matter what you think that number is) it would have to be balanced by some decrease in "more normal" deaths. Obviously, one could propose all kinds of mechanisms that might lead to this. One could suggest that because people are either disgusted by or rallying around Trump, death rates are different. One could suggest that the impending conjuction of Saturn & Jupiter on Dec 21st has reduced death rates from non-covid19 causes. And to be sure, at present, there doesn't seem to be a particularly good way to establish this. But it also seems rather reasonable to say that since the biggest change in human behavior at this point has been driven by attempts to contain covid19, that it is likely these changes that have caused the "balancing" decrease in non-covid19 deaths. One obvious rebuttal is that the graph does NOT show no excess mortality. This is certainly true. But the magnitude of the it is smaller than would be expected from even the most, ahem, conservative estimates of covid19 deaths. Ergo, there is some reduction in non-covid19 deaths, and occam's razor would put changes due to anti-covid measures near the top of the list of likely causes for that. |
That would not be a given assumption (under your scenario of zero excess deaths). Old people who would otherwise have died from another reason could die from Covid19 instead.
Or imagine testing everybody for the common cold, and if somebody dies with the common cold virus, they would be counted as a "common cold death". Then you would see a lot of deaths "from the common cold", without any actual change in death rates.