Yeah,, and its the same story during nn-pandemic times too, which is why excesss winter death figures are paid attention to every year.
During the first wave the daily deaths reported by government were so limited (mostly only hospital deaths for quite some time during that period) that the ONS death certificate deaths were considerably higher than the daily numbers. But the daily numbers have been much improved since then, and in this second wave there are some dates where the ONS deaths via death certificate mentioning Covid-19 are actually failing to keep up with the daily government figures.
Excess death figures aren't perfect either. Events such as influenza epidemics can affect the 5 year average, and the effects of the virus, healthcare issues, lockdown measures and recession are a complex mix. For example less deaths of certain kinds are expected at the start of a recession/lower economic activity due to things including pollution levels, and it takes quite a long time before recessions are expected to lead to more deaths rather than fewer deaths. The negative consequences of lockdowns were also very unlikely to lead to statistically significant deaths during the peak of the first wave. But Im not including affected hospital services in that, which will have had their own consequences. And a bunch of other stuff that I can't be arsed to drone on about right now. The point is that these things impact where the baseline of non-covid deaths should be, above which deaths are counted as excess. And the baseline will be further out of whack with reality if, for example, we end up with far fewer flu deaths than normal over winter, since those deaths in previous seasons are baked into the 5 year averages. And its not like we count normal flu deaths properly either, so I cannot simply remove all the flu deaths from the last 5 years figures to come up with a more appropriate baseline for a winter that lacks flu deaths.
