No. The same analysis holds true whether the deaths were direct results of COVID, or instead indirect impacts from poor pandemic policy. For example, say Texas, thanks to its laissez faire approach to COVID, packed its ICU's with COVID patients. And say that, as a result, car accident victims died at much higher rates, since they were denied needed ICU beds and wound up being cared for by exhausted ER personnel. Well, those extra car accident deaths are also an impact from the bone-headed decision to do so little to curb the virus.
There are actually a number of ways those indirect COVID deaths could play out. Take the Great Trump Murder Surge of 2020. That was not spread evenly across the country. The top seven biggest increases in murder in 2020 were in conservative red states, while seven out of eight states that did best were blue states. Coincidence? Conceivably. But several of those states that either had their murder rates drop or rise just a tenth of a point were also ones that had very low excess mortality in 2020, like NH, ME, VT, MA, HI, and RI. It's at least conceivable that COVID, which is known to shrink the brains of its victims, helped to provoke a surge of murder rates by causing brain damage that broke down self control (similar to the way lead poisoning once made us a more violent nation). If so, then the extra murders in some states could be another indirect impact of letting COVID run wild.
With an analysis based on comparing excess death percentages, one doesn't have to presume anything about any of those individual policies. One just needs to look at the outcomes. Did mortality rates continue at pre-pandemic levels, or did they rise significantly? If they rose, by how much? Was it a fairly moderate increase, like 3% in Canada. Was it something more serious but manageable, like 8% in Massachusetts? Or was it a catastrophic die off, like 27% in Arizona? We can, of course, debate which particular decisions let one place outperform others. But step one is being honest about the existence of that out-performance.
There was a vast amount of science -- hundreds of published studies. If what you mean to say is "I'm much lazy to have reviewed the science" then just come out and say that. But you just look goofy trying to deny the fact the science exists.
Actually, what you're angry about is the exact opposite issue. While moral people around the world were focused on saving lives and preventing disease, you and the wingnuts were throwing a hissy fit because nobody wanted to run with your political football and focus on playing the blame game for how the disease got started.
