[l0ner]

In most countries, if you die having COVID, and you cant exclude COVID as being the cause, you are included in the COVID death count. In russia, if you die having COVID, but yoy also have any other sickness that could be the cause of death, you are not included in the COVID death count.

While the former overestimates, the latter underestimates. I dont have any reference to prove it, but my gut feeling tells me that the latter is probably even further away from the true number than the former. In any case, they are absolutely not comparable.

[barrkel]

The best statistical tool we have to figure out the real death rate due to COVID is excess mortality, and these numbers have been higher even than the seemingly overattributed numbers.

There are still a bunch of people who die and don't get attributed, and there are people who die because there's a pandemic on and they don't get healthcare as a result, either because there isn't capacity or to avoid infection.