Things are almost certainly much worse than official death counts indicate

Since since we’ve now passed 100 Epstein Coefficients, it’s worth noting that the official counts of official COVID-related deaths are almost certainly significant undercounts:

In the early weeks of the coronavirus epidemic, the United States recorded an estimated 15,400 excess deaths, nearly two times as many as were publicly attributed to covid-19 at the time, according to an analysis of federal data conducted for The Washington Post by a research team led by the Yale School of Public Health.

The excess deaths — the number beyond what would normally be expected for that time of year — occurred during March and through April 4, a time when 8,128 coronavirus deaths were reported.

The excess deaths are not necessarily attributable directly to covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. They could include people who died because of the epidemic but not from the disease, such as those who were afraid to seek medical treatment for unrelated illnesses, as well as some number of deaths that are part of the ordinary variation in the death rate. The count is also affected by increases or decreases in other categories of deaths, such as suicides, homicides and motor vehicle accidents.

And, really, deaths that are the indirect result of the pandemic are just as important to considering whether we should end social distancing measures as deaths due to the disease itself. Alas:

we’re tucked https://t.co/MdJPOWRnZv— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) April 28, 2020

My understanding is Tucker had been relatively non-insane on this subject beforehand, so this suggests a deadly emerging Republican consensus. This will not end well.