As always, certain posts allow you to firm your own position, and these two at different ends of the same continuum have done that for me.
Yes, people with serious underlying conditions have died earlier than they would without Covid, but many might have died from say a bad flu year, or from a fall and not being found for 24hrs.
Similarly, as someone who will be 80 at the end of the decade (hopefully) apparent cold hard facts about whether or not we are seeing excess deaths are just that, cold and hard.
If we look at things with compassion but with an eye to reality we can see that anyone who has a serious underlying condition could have an illness or event at any time that hastens their decline. If you have been around long enough you will have seen this first hand.
The time for working out whether the pandemic has led to excess deaths, and whether or not more deaths and serious illness could have been prevented (not just covid related), will come after the fact. Right now I feel we need to have compassion for those who have suffered loss, and be brave enough to go out and face the new world that covid has produced, trusting in our vaccines in my case.