Were deaths only delayed?

A fascinating analysis presented at the 61st Annual Conference of the New Zealand Association of Economists which found that the reduction in deaths due to the 2020 lockdown (as we had less flu etc) was followed by a surge from November to February.

The reason this is pertinent is some public health advocates have argued that we shouldn’t just do lockdowns etc for Covid-19, but also do them to stop the flu etc, on the basis of the drop off in deaths during the lockdowns.

But the conclusion here is that the deaths were only delayed a few months.