> Serious question, how many of those people would have died in the past 12 months if they didn't get COVID? The number is most likely not 500,000, but it also probably isn't 0.

This can be answered using “excess mortality” data.

Studies have shown during that time period, about 600,000 more people died than would have been expected compared to deaths in the previous year.

The official covid death count is likely an undercount of deaths caused by covid, because a number of people died from covid related complications and got recorded as pneumonia, Alzheimer’s, or heart disease/attack/stroke related deaths.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/14/us/covid-19-d...

From the CDC: In 2019, a total of 2,854,838 resident deaths were registered in the United States—15,633 more deaths than in 2018.

In 2020, approximately 3,358,814 deaths occurred in the United States (Table). The age-adjusted rate was 828.7 deaths per 100,000 population, an increase of 15.9% from 715.2 in 2019.

Assuming the rates stayed the same or roughly so from year to year, it appears that not many of them would have died sans COVID19. Certainly well over 5000. If there is a trend, none of the data I looked at on the CDC site supported this, raw deaths have been rising in the last 5 years but death's per 100,000 have held. So if it's a small increase per 100,000 is "normal" given those trends 16% is still well outside the normal, so it's likely something like 300,000 or there about. I sure someone here could do the math to verify that but I don't feel like it. :)

ref: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db395.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm

Initially the cdc data pointed to about 2/3rds would have died anyway in the same time period in the US, but that was a few months in. Now if you pull total deaths from the cdc, subtract deaths tagged as covid and fit a sinusoid with a 52 week period and a slope for population growth you get a pretty solid fit with the exception of the 2018 and 2015 flu, and last summer. But last summer the sinusoid is under the total daeths minus covid deaths. Integrating the area between I think we undereported covid deaths by about 50k over the summer. We are back down to predictded deaths now without counting covid deaths. So I think all half million deaths are in excess of expected value, plus another 50k.

Probably not that low. This study [1] says about 80,000. (There were about 420,000 excess deaths in the US last year.) That number isn't perfect in that it ignores any death reductions from accidents, say, that didn't happen because people were staying home. It also doesn't account for any deaths resulting from untreated conditions.

[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.27.21250604v...

It would depend on the age and make up of the population, cross reference that with a mortality table and you can get a pretty good idea. For a 25 year old the odds of dying in a given year are about .03, and this obviously moves higher as the population grows older.