There have certainly been discrepancies within the death counts, but I can accept that as a hazard of having to work with the CDC's numbers. Regardless, the fact that the overall trendline of the winter wave unfolded with very close proportions tells me that my decision to extrapolate historical data rather than attempting to model the impact of NPI changes was the correct choice.
However, one thing in the CDC's favor is that the age distribution of the deaths attributed to COVID tracks closely to what would be expected for a population experiencing pandemic-level case loads, rather than the typical age distribution for all causes of death in a normal year.
There have certainly been discrepancies within the death counts, but I can accept that as a hazard of having to work with the CDC's numbers. Regardless, the fact that the overall trendline of the winter wave unfolded with very close proportions tells me that my decision to extrapolate historical data rather than attempting to model the impact of NPI changes was the correct choice.
However, one thing in the CDC's favor is that the age distribution of the deaths attributed to COVID tracks closely to what would be expected for a population experiencing pandemic-level case loads, rather than the typical age distribution for all causes of death in a normal year.