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I'm pretty sure Elbows has posted a lot about this in the covid forum, but yes the viable definition is called "excess mortality" and is used in insurance as well as medical reporting e.g.
UK mortality has been above 2019 levels for 22 consecutive weeks, which is the longest continuous period of 'excess' deaths recorded in the country since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
www.theactuary.com
Excess mortality is a term used in epidemiology and public health that refers to the number of deaths from all causes during a crisis above and beyond what we would have expected to see under ‘normal’ conditions.1 In this case, we’re interested in how the number of deaths during the COVID-19...
ourworldindata.org
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As you say though there's not been a huge comparison to other countries - as it's often difficult to correlate differences across geographical populations even within the same country. MD in Private Eye has done a series of excellent articles on the difference, as well as excoriating the government's handling of it (esp. cronyism in track and trace and PPE contracts).
Also as you say, it seems many people don't really care about it though.