[whomario]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Currently at about 612k deaths. JAMA article said about 522k excess deaths as of Jan 2021. Not all of those can be attributed to Covid so who know the true number. Assuming 50% that makes it 612k + 261k = 873k deaths.

Probably 750k - 1M range is the winner.

Excess Deaths From COVID-19 and Other Causes in the US, March 1, 2020, to January 2, 2021 | Infectious Diseases | JAMA | JAMA Network

You misunderstand the Numbers here a bit, though accidentily come close

Excess Deaths = Above normal, so including Covid19. But only up to January 2nd. So at that point per the Analysis in JAMA there were 522k Excess Deaths, but only 378k reported as Covid19 by the CDC definition. The exact parameters i am not sure of but likely includes a positive test, which is not always performed before death, especially elderly at home or care settings dying soon after things get bad , but also those arriving late to hospital (where a test might already show as negative). And of course Covid actually does result in things like heartattacks, blot clods etc and other conditions are a common denominator of sorts (like Alzheimers patients), so without a test it can easily be misjudged in people not treated in hospital. Of course this also happens the other way round i am sure (though of course far from as often as certain circles claim), but it seems a wide consensus that an undercount is more likely in most regions unless the HC system utterly collapsed. So even aside from it still being a "Pandemic toll", the deaths with Covid19 as the main cause are likely an undercount.

If one wanted to infer from the articles numbers on Jan. 2 it would have to be:

522k --> 72,4% of these officially Covid19 --> 602k now = 72,4% of 831k.

in reality likely a bit lower as the amount of misdiagnosed deaths was very likely higher in the first wave than later on.