Why Excess Deaths and Covid Deaths Don't match

If you go to the CDC site, here and look at weekly data for the week ending October 3rd.  Here is what you'll find:  Average expected number of deaths:  53,138.  Predicted (weighted) number of deaths:  57,067.  The difference between these is 3,929.  Even though this data is weighted and over a month old, you may find slightly different numbers because the CDC is constantly updating as information comes in.

If you divide the weekly deaths by 7 to get the average per day:  This gives 561.  But if you go to this site: You will see that the 7-day smoothed average deaths/day on October 3rd is 729 deaths/day. The difference is 168/day or 61,216/year.

Three hypotheses:

1. They are counting deaths from Covid which would have happened without Covid.  So, somebody dies of cancer, but he is Covid positive, so they count it as a Covid death.

2. There are non-Covid deaths which are prevented by the steps we are taking to prevent the spread of Covid.  What could they be? Of the top 10 causes of death in the US, only three would seem to have any relation to Covid or our steps to prevent it:

• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 167,127:  There are certainly enough here to see some impact from the reduction in driving, which is a major component of unintentional injuries.  But people have more time at home and are likely injuring themselves falling off of ladders and the like.
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 59,120: This should be going down.  If our efforts to control Covid are at all useful, they should also reduce the spread of other lung-related diseases.
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 48,344:  If anything, one would expect that the stress associated with this pandemic would cause more, not less self harm.

3.  A combination of 1 and 2.