[1] Or 'with Covid' if you believe those people just happen to be dying of something else while having Covid.
This obvious inconsistency is relevant to the discussion.
In the case of things like car crashes, there's a significant benefit of using cars that means we choose to tolerate deaths as part of the cost of having easy access to transport. The same is true of many things that kill people. The utility of the cause of the deaths means the cost is accepted.
I don't think there's a strong argument in favor of the usefulness of Covid.
The strong argument is in favor of not living life as though we were amid a crisis, locked down and paranoid.
There is even an argument in favor of not requiring masks. It's a much weaker one, but the benefits are not large either because masks on the general population are not very effective against omicron.
There is definitely a strong argument in favour of not shutting down an economy because of it.
I ask because 7452 people die per day in the US on average, meaning 6.7% of the people who die now have Covid (using your 500/day figure).
Clearly some die from and some happen to die with Covid. The difference could be estimated simplistically based on the percent of the population that currently has Covid. If 0.5% have Covid and 6.7% of the people who die have it, there is a correlation. If 5% have Covid and 6.7% of the people who die have it, there's not much correlation. (Of course, in the correlation case, it still doesn't prove causation, as the weakened immune systems of those who are dying may be unable to fight off Covid at the end.)
I think the best way to evaluate is to look at excess deaths. But even there you've got data contamination from the measures that were taken (drinking deaths, suicides up, flu down, etc.) and no way to figure out exactly how many of the various increases and decreases are directly attributable to the Covid measures.
> If the decedent tested positive for COVID, the virus also gets placed on the death certificate. Many of these people likely died with COVID, not from COVID, Grannis said.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/...
Here's an article about Australia, too:
> Indeed, distinguishing between dying with and dying from COVID-19 may require a more complex investigation into the cause of a death, beyond citing a positive SARS-CoV-2 test that was completed prior to the person’s death.
https://theconversation.com/died-from-or-died-with-covid-19-...