Death rates don’t tell full story

THOSE media who said that the excess deaths during 2020 were the greatest since 1940 were trying to hide the real facts with emotion.

Many of the statistics around Covid need very careful examination. The raw figures are (mostly) correct, but the way they are presented and interpreted is often fishy, and we will have to wait for an independent inquiry to make sense of many of them – if then.

But the comparison with 1940 is plain wrong because the population of this country has risen so much since then. If you allow for that growth, the excess deaths for last year were probably the highest since 2008. Bad, but not that bad.

Also please bear in mind that many of the excess deaths for the past year may well have been caused by delayed or missed medical treatment resulting from lockdowns – not Covid.

The Recovery campaign estimates t hat 6, 000 people died because they failed to access accident and emergency treatment. And this will get worse.

Last week, official figures showed tens of thousands of cancer cases went undiagnosed as NHS waiting lists ballooned. And 4.46 million people in England are waiting for non-emergency surgery, the highest figure since records began in 2007. Lockdowns also kill.