Seven months ago when the UK had had “only” 14,500 Covid-19 deaths the prediction by the Gates’ foundation of deaths reaching four times this number was rubbished. For posterity below is today’s prediction for three months’ time.
At the moment there are argument over whether the statistics should be those who died ‘with’ or ‘of” Covid-19 but to really measure the human cost of the pandemic as a whole there is an even higher number: Surplus deaths compared to the five-year average. At the moment one in twenty excess deaths does not mention Covid-19, and instead are due to things ranging from cancelled heart operations to suicides.
The NHS cannot cope in the best of winters and with the focus of inadequate resources on Covid-19 a lot more people will not get things like cancers diagnosed until it is too late. I have no doubt the UK government will try to bury this inevitable this bad news.