As of now, US excess mortality is 15% on par with Poland (UK, Israel is 9, France, Germany 5).
To what degree this is due to the country medical system or overall organization, I don’t know.
The timeline suggests that it is only in part to “pre existing condition”: US is higher but within a pack of half of developed countries up to February 2021. So, US was doing almost as well as other reasonable countries. Most of relative decline is from June 2021 to February 2022.
“Confirmed deaths” statistics give a similar picture.
So, collective desire to not be bothered cost on the order 100,000 lives.
I understand people who miss going to stadiums and bars, but I still do not understand Jewish thinking. When avos were confronted with hunger, they would go to Mitzrayim (sic!) to get food at the cost of personal safety. They would not rebel against H’ and say – we are gonna learn Torah in EY, do not bother us with gashmiyus. So, I can’t fathom Jews denying conditions that they observe.
And, obviously, many gedolim, like R Edelstein, R Henneman took the events seriously.
Then, the only explanation is that these Jews were convinced that nothing was really happening: people did not die, it is liberals’ fall, they are not fair to us, etc. Those who “identify with Trump” present the most confusing picture – refusing to take vaccines that Trump spent so much effort pushing through government regulations. Among all explanations, Occam razor seem to point to simply uneducated people listening to political radio and websites and following whatever their hearts desire.