[ptaipale]

Even in countries with fairly good covid situation (I'm in Finland) we are going to see excess mortality over the coming years, because right now as we speak, elective operations for heart surgeries and cancer operations are being postponed in order to make room for covid patients.

ICU wards are designed for normal operations at near-full capacity. Maintaining a large-scale vacant ICU capacity is both uneconomical and operationally very difficult (because ICU treatment skills are highly specific and learning, maintaining and updating them requires one to be working on the area).

[disambiguation]

This will show up as excess mortality of "preventable deaths".

But those stats will be overshadowed by 2 larger factors:

1. the pendulum will swing back as covid goes to zero .. fewer unhealthy and elderly members of the population will result in overall lower mortality rates in the short term (2-3 years).

2. baby boomers are coming of age .. a baby boom is eventually followed by a death boom. This will drive up the mortality rate long term (5-10 years).