Interesting article, could be unrelated but you never know. A man close to some CV research breakthrough shot in the head, presumed killer then went to his car and shot himself in the head. I'd say its a little out of the ordinary snice both are chinese and one is working on CV
These stats are still inflated no matter how you cut it, because they include "with COVID" deaths as dictated by CDC reporting standards.
125% of expected deaths roughly matches the 13k reported COVID-19 deaths for the week of 4/11 so no, it's very unlikely to be inflated by any significant amount. More recent weeks are incomplete but trending the same way.