> It’s not even a remotely plausible figure given our lived experience of this pandemic.

Just a nitpick, but I'd be really careful to generalize like this. The lived experiences of the pandemic are radically different between people. For some, it is very personal and immediate - if they have close friend or relatives who are affected or if they work in a profession, where they frequently whitness infections.

Others may be lucky and may not have experienced the actual pandemic at all, only the effects of the countermeasures.

All that makes it hard for a random person to instantly dismiss most figures like the one in the article as implausible, if you're not specifically keeping track of the development or are working in the field. I think this is one of the reasons why covid misinformation can grab a hold so easily.