COVID denialists often attribute excess deaths to lockdowns as opposed to undercounting of deaths from COVID. I was just preempting that line by pointing out Australia had severe lockdowns but negative excess deaths.
As I recall the basis of the argument against lockdowns (which yes was made by legitimate epidemeologists before covid made everything so politicized and tribal) is that the disease eventually comes right back and infects everyone once the lockdown ends. I do think there is a good argument about allowing vaccines to be developed and delivered though. But benefits like preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed were believed to already be achievable with social distancing alone. So one must be careful to not give to much credit to the lockdowns alone.
As for excess deaths, it presumably depends on how well the country can endure the self-inflicted downsides (such as a recession) that comes with it. Countries where it causes severe problems probably are the very ones who didn't have the political will to maintain the lockdowns, leading to some biased conclusions. We also have lots of other issues caused by covid response such as shortages and spiking prices all over. Being outright dodged by pointing blame at some indermediate actor like "corporate supply chains" or "hoarders" or whatever.
The point is there are arguments that can be made on all sides. No need to insult and dismiss people.
COVID what-ists? You mean all manner of people who have all manner of opinions and reasons for them that just so happen to differ from the views presented as scientific consensus by government, media and celebrities?
Here is a summary of over 400 studies demonstrating lockdowns are ineffective or harmful:
Prepare a sufficiently convincing argument against each and every one of them, and against the credentials of each and every author, before using the term "denialist" in application to anyone other than yourself.
Ok. I don’t care what the purported “studies” say. China, Taiwan, Australia had hard lockdowns. Taiwan and Australia have accurate statistics — they had virtually no COVID deaths and no excess deaths.
Sweden is 62nd on a list of 180 countries on deaths per capita. We can argue back and forth like this but why bother? If you don't care what the studies say, your mind is made up, making discussion with you valueless - for you.
I’m not saying there’s a huge difference between light and lighter lockdowns (ie, Denmark/Norway/Germany vs Sweden). I’m saying lockdowns themselves don’t produce excess deaths vs baseline (as evidenced by Australia and Taiwan). Therefore, the excess deaths that occurred in the US, which are greater than official COVID deaths, indicate COVID deaths are being under counted, not over counted
Doesn't basing your conclusion on the two countries that support it, out of a pool of ~200 that exist, seem a bit tentative?
It's at about the same level as the counter argument regarding Sweden (which is one reason I made it).
Have a look through the studies I linked, you'll find several that perform rigorous analysis on a large number of countries, including in some cases specifically regarding excess mortality.
For example, have a look at Figures 2A and 2B from the following study. 38 countries compared by length of initial lockdown measures, versus per capita excess mortality for the period, and then the same measure compared across all states of the US: