A word of WPML caution when using wp_defer_term_counting(true);

First read

https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/219975/is-there-a-downside-of-using-wp-defer-term-counting
https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/316777/how-to-update-incorrect-post-count-in-taxonomy
https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/219975/is-there-a-downside-of-using-wp-defer-term-counting

Are your wondering ... why even when you added wp_defer_term_counting(true); WP is STILL indexing/counting your terms? Take a look at your WPML core files.

WPML checks if the counting has been disabled and uses the shutdown hook to do it anyway ...

So we need to unhook that as well using:

global $wpml_post_translations;
remove_action( 'shutdown', [ $wpml_post_translations, 'shutdown_action' ], PHP_INT_MAX );