The World Bank puts out estimated crude death rates per 1000 population each year, allowing you to track the year-to-year changes in death rates.
A study published in November of 2021 tracked mask use among nations, sorting nations into consistently-low and consistently-high mask use in 2020. When the 14 nations with consistently-high mask use in 2020 were analyzed here, the average increase in crude death was +0.546 per 1000 — equivalent to +546 per million.
For perspective, a November 2019 estimate of flu death from the 2017/18 season was 79,400 — when the mid-season (January 2018) US population was 326.216 million, giving a flu death rate of 243 per million.
In nations where people used masks a lot, the death increase in 2020 was twice as bad as severe flu.
But the 3 nations with consistently-low mask use (<15% mask use) did better in 2020.
The 3-nation average for Denmark, Norway, and Sweden was 156 per million — a death increase from COVID that was 64% as high, or almost two-thirds as high, as the flu death of 2017/18.
Without masks in 2020, COVID wasn’t any worse than a severe flu season. Evidence in Norway, where death dropped, bears this out.
If masks made deaths worse, then what about vaccines?
Evidence also points to the proposition that, without vaccines in 2021, COVID would not have been any worse than the median flu season.
Evidence on over 50,000 tracked COVID infections in the UK reveals that, before mutations had set in and dropped the infection fatality rate (IFR) of COVID — making it more mild — there was 1 COVID death for every 500 COVID infections, an IFR of 0.2%.
That was back in January of 2021, when COVID was still at “peak lethality.” Variants which came after that were all less lethal, indicating that COVID itself in 2021 would be no worse than median flu.
Because vaccines were given, excess death in 2021 was much worse than what is seen with median flu though, even though the underlying disease wasn’t appreciably worse than seasonal flu by the end of the summer of 2021, when Delta variant replaced all prior COVID variants.
Evidence from almost 700,000 sequenced infections in the UK proves that Delta variant was not even half as fatal as the variants which came before it (e.g., Alpha variant).
Without masks or vaccines, it is unlikely that excess death in 2020 and 2021 would have exceeded an annual average of 243 deaths per million (the published estimate from November of 2019 for the flu of 2017/18) — primarily because, by midyear of 2021, circulating COVID variants were no longer any more lethal than flu.
Reference
[Crude death rates by nation and year] — World Bank. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CDRT.IN
[Denmark, Norway, and Sweden consistently below 15% mask use] — Badillo-Goicoechea E, Chang TH, Kim E, LaRocca S, Morris K, Deng X, Chiu S, Bradford A, Garcia A, Kern C, Cobb C, Kreuter F, Stuart EA. Global trends and predictors of face mask usage during the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC Public Health. 2021 Nov 15;21(1):2099. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-12175-9. PMID: 34781917; PMCID: PMC8667772. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8667772/
[2017/18 flu season led to 79,400 deaths when mid-season (January 2018) US population was 326.216 million, giving an annual flu death rate of 243 deaths per million] -- Rolfes MA, Flannery B, Chung JR, O'Halloran A, Garg S, Belongia EA, Gaglani M, Zimmerman RK, Jackson ML, Monto AS, Alden NB, Anderson E, Bennett NM, Billing L, Eckel S, Kirley PD, Lynfield R, Monroe ML, Spencer M, Spina N, Talbot HK, Thomas A, Torres SM, Yousey-Hindes K, Singleton JA, Patel M, Reed C, Fry AM; US Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness (Flu VE) Network, the Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network, and the Assessment Branch, Immunization Services Division, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Effects of Influenza Vaccination in the United States During the 2017-2018 Influenza Season. Clin Infect Dis. 2019 Nov 13;69(11):1845-1853. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciz075. PMID: 30715278; PMCID: PMC7188082. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7188082/
[As of 19 Jan 2021, from 52,000 COVID infections with Alpha (SGTF) variant, there were 104 deaths, 1 death per 500 Alpha infections (IFR=0.20%)] — UK Technical Briefing #5 (PDF file). Available general: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-novel-sars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201
Available specific page: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/959426/Variant_of_Concern_VOC_202012_01_Technical_Briefing_5.pdf
[In almost 700,000 cases confirmed by sequencing, Delta was only 42% as lethal as Alpha (IFR=0.08%), which is no longer more lethal than seasonal flu] — UK Technical Briefing #25. Available general: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-sars-cov-2-variants-technical-briefings
Available specific page: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1025827/Technical_Briefing_25.pdf