Let's look at England & Wales all cause deaths back until 1953.

In the last 68 years, 51 have had more deaths than in 2020.

There is a noticeable increase in deaths for 2020 but note the slight upward trend in recent years.

1/n

2/n

If we rank the 68 years of data by number of adjusted deaths, 2020 has the 17th fewest - its in the bottom 25% of total deaths.

Of course healthcare has improved over time but it does put into perspective how lucky we are with the treatments available to us now.

3/n

Also note the drop in deaths in 2019.

A significant portion of covid-related excess mortality appears to be related to mild prior flu seasons accross the world. The Uk is no exception. https://twitter.com/Humble_Analysis/status/1277804862734925827?s=20

4/n

The wonderful work by @HaraldofW on Sweden was what gave me the idea to look more closely at this. https://twitter.com/LearnLeapLean/status/1283122703503958016?s=20

5/n

Method:

The yearly data is adjusted for population changes.

For 2020 I've taken weekly deaths up until week 26 and then the 5 year average deaths for the rest of the year

I think this is a reasonable to thing to given deaths have been below average for the last 3 weeks.

6/n

The data is from the ONS.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/vitalstatisticspopulationandhealthreferencetables

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

7/n

We also know that there have been at least 15,000 excess deaths not from Covid but likely a side effect of lockdown.

For example:

-Missed cancer or heart treatments.
-Delayed organ transplants.
-Increase in suicides.

@InProportion2