1) The people who have died of Covid19 were, on average the very oldest among us, So old, in fact, that their average age at death (82.4) was higher than the national average for age at death (81.5), leading to the perverse statistic that someone who dies of covid19 has, on average, a longer life expectancy than someone who dies of anything other than Covid19. It is, therefore, an entirely reasonable assumption to make that such people are more likely, all other things being equal, to die this year than anybody else.
2) The above assumption is predictably corroborated the moment you take a look at the total annual death rates for the last 5 years in the UK.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ndandwales
2015 - 529,655
2016 - 525,048
2017 - 533,253
2018 - 541,589
2019 - 530,841
2020 (thus far) - 453,803
From the above numbers is it plain to see that, whilst there is, indeed, a small but significant rise, thus far, in the death rate for this year, it does not particularly lie far outside the the normal range.
However, even to limited extent it does, given that the vast and overwhelming demographic of those dying of Covid 19 have been the elderly and the very elderly, we may still reasonably assume that even this relatively modest increase will be of people who were in, at most, the last two years of life. Though, this will not be confirmed until and unless we see a commensurate dip in the death rate next year due to the fact you cannot die twice. However, the fact that we are NOT seeing a commensurate rise in deaths and hospitalizations (despite the lies peddled on the MSM) during this second wave of infection is, indeed, corroborating the fact that anyone who was at risk of dying of Covid19 have mostly already done so.
So, in short, our country's economy has been reduced to a smoldering ruin and the liberties won with the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors have been stripped away in order to prevent the deaths of people, the vast majority of whose lives were drawing to a natural close sometime in the next 12 or so months and a minority of whose lives were due to naturally end sometime in the next 24 or so months.
Covid19 IR over time
Covid19 Hospital admissions over time
Covid19 CFR over time
Covid 19 CFR demographics
https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/s ... -activity/
Finally, as for the latest attempt to make everyone shit their pants, this time over "Long Covid":
That too is bullshit - at least to the extent to which it affects people. One might as well say there is such a thing as "long flu". That is to say, there is always going to be a very small portion of people - usually the very elderly and/or already very frail - who will experience symptoms of things like flu for weeks or, even, months after initial recovery. And so it will be, almost certainly, with a respiratory virus like Covid19. So what?
The only thing that matters, from a public policy perspective, is how many people will suffer such symptoms and how severe are they.
If you trawl (as I have) through a large number of media articles hysterically proclaiming "long Covid" is going to get us, what you find is largely uncorroborated propaganda or, when it is corroborated, it is with individual, unverifiable anecdotes, which are meaningless. Or, whenever it points to actual research findings, when you go and dig up the original research and read through it, it is of people who are already very elderly and/or already very frail. The very people, in other words, who would likely suffer lingering symptoms of any number of illnesses.
In short, "long covid" is just one more piece of hysterical, fear mongering propaganda.
First they told us millions would die.
Then when that narrative began to falter in the light of the data, they told us all of our kids would die of "Kawasaki disease". Remember that?
Then, they told us we all had to wear muzzles on the entirely evidence free assertion that Covid19 is asymptomatically transmitted.
Now, when it is clear the second wave of infection is NOT being accompanied by a second wave of hospitalizations and deaths, they are trying to get us all to shit our pants over "long covid"
so I think it is a little unfair to frame the debate like that. The questions should be how far do you go, what do you mandate, what do you ask people to do, do you impose £10,000 fines on people? and how do you balance this against the economic and social impacts. Unfortunately Boris and Hancock's smear of 'letting the virus rip' is an attempt to close down this debate in my view. 