The last was esteemed a pretty high bill; but after this we found the bills successively increasing

From A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe.  

Besides this, it was observed with great uneasiness by the people that the weekly bills in general increased very much during these weeks, although it was at a time of the year when usually the bills are very moderate.

The usual number of burials within the bills of mortality for a week was from about 240 or thereabouts to 300. The last was esteemed a pretty high bill; but after this we found the bills successively increasing as follows:— 

Buried.  Increased. 

 December the 20th to the 27th             291           ... 

 December 27th to 3rd January             349           58 

 January the 3rd to 10th   ”                    394           45 

January 10th to 17th   ”                        415            21 

January 17th to 24th   ”                        474            59 

This last bill was really frightful, being a higher number than had been known to have been buried in one week since the preceding visitation of 1656.

Parallels to today:

We still have little real visibility on the death rates from Covid-19.  In the US the headline number is some 600,000 but we know that number includes people dying with Covid, not from Covid.  We know that virtually all flu and pneumonia deaths have disappeared, presumably due to being subsumed into Covid.  We know a vast majority of those who have died we expected to die within months due to comorbidities.  

We simply have not agreed at a public level as to what constitutes the number of deaths from Covid. 

This is relevant because the number of possibly avoided deaths is the bounding number for the cost of whatever we wish to do.  The higher the avoidable deaths from Covid, the more money we ought to be willing to forestall those deaths.  

Additionally, we need to know the real mortality rates to assess the gravity of the potential disease. In 1665 with All Causes Mortality increasing by 10-25% a week, it was clear that serious action was warranted.  Our All Causes Increases in deaths per week have never approached those levels.  Serious, yes; but not plague serious.