However when Martin of Silves starts his letter by insisting only the facts are important, then states that “In all countries in the world the mortality rate for 2020 is exactly the same as earlier years” I have to correct him.

Unless he wants to rewrite the figures from the Office of National Statistics on registered deaths I can quote that in the years 2015 to 2019 the average number of registered deaths per annum in England and Wales was 532,000. Actual numbers per year were 529k, 525k, 533k, 542k and 531k. I am sure you will agree these are quite consistent. In 2020 this figure rose to 608,000. This represents an increase of 76,000 deaths in a single year.

If we choose the period April 2020 to the present, the excess mortality is approximately one hundred thousand. This figure is lower than that quoted daily on TV and is admittedly not “deaths caused by Covid” but the fact remains that, were it not for the pandemic, a hundred thousand people in England and Wales would be alive today.

Martyn, Budens,

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