"that people simply forgot, for a few years, that death could happen without Covid."

Or that respiratory viruses have always killed people who were already old and/or sick - and where by "killed" I mean "hastened the inevitable." The flu "kills" many such people every year.

At some point, we decided to ignore the difference between "virus slightly hastened the end of life like they've always done" and "virus struck down a healthy person like a car accident or bolt of lightening."