Was thinking about China covid death toll being so low. If they invented it, they would know exactly what to test for. So you could divide that into what normal flu deaths are and get a percentage of deaths that you could use elsewhere to find an actual covid death count.
China has 4500 deaths with a normal flu death of 90k per year
That would tell me the US has 2500 actual covid deaths with a normal flu death count of 50k.
This is an exercise but gets you thinking.