Replied to your other comment, and yeah I mistakenly assumed you were running the flu numbers from that data set. (I blame the CDC's awful data presentation practices.)
Anyway, point 2 is the main issue.
We should both take a look when more numbers come out. My guess is that the gap will narrow. It'll probably be something like 100-150k over 2019. But even if it grows to 300k+ we still have to keep in mind that that represents an excess 0.1% of the total population that died.
Replied to your other comment, and yeah I mistakenly assumed you were running the flu numbers from that data set. (I blame the CDC's awful data presentation practices.)
Anyway, point 2 is the main issue.
We should both take a look when more numbers come out. My guess is that the gap will narrow. It'll probably be something like 100-150k over 2019. But even if it grows to 300k+ we still have to keep in mind that that represents an excess 0.1% of the total population that died.