I have estimated that the death count from COVID-19 is about 50% too low.  This is from looking at numbers early in the pandemic.  Thing is, overall death counts are hard to hide. And since the death rate is fairly predictable you can look at the “excess deaths” in 2020 and get the true COVID-19 death count.  Note that this also has the effect of removing the count of very sick people who would have died from something else had COVID-19 not taken them.  From the New York Times.