According to a BBC analysis, among the major European economies, the UK experienced one of the worst increases in mortality rates.
Average death rates in the UK increased by more than 5% per year during the pandemic compared to the years immediately prior, primarily due to a high death toll in the first year.
That was higher than the rate of growth observed in France, Spain, or Germany, but it was significantly lower than that in Italy and the US.
One of the world's worst waves of Covid deaths occurred in the UK in April and May of 2020. .
England's chief medical officer, Prof. Sir Chris Whitty, however, issued a caution against drawing premature conclusions from comparisons of Covid deaths across nations.
Instead, he advised considering all deaths because they are independent of what a nation designates as a Covid death.
And he added that analyses should take into account each country's age distribution, which can account for many variations in death rates.
We have created a database of those statistics using information gathered over the previous eight years from a variety of European nations as well as the US and New Zealand.
Sir Chris is about to provide first-time testimony in the UK's long-awaited Covid inquiry.
We've also taken a look back at the three years of pandemic deaths since March 2020, when the World Health Organization declared an end to the global health emergency.
By measuring how much the death rates of various nations changed from the five years prior to the pandemic, we were able to compare them.
The UK's death rates increased by more than 5% over the three years leading up to February 2023, outpacing France, Germany, and Spain, which all saw increases between 3% and 4%, but falling short of Italy, where they increased by more than 6%.
With death rates more than 10% higher than pre-pandemic levels over the three years leading up to February 2023, the US and Eastern European nations like Poland were even worse off. .
However, in nations like Sweden, Norway, and New Zealand, who successfully contained the virus before its vaccination program took off, death rates decreased.
For each nation, the year-over-year data conveys a different narrative.
For the UK, they predict initial setbacks followed by sizable success in 2022.
One of the worst-affected nations during the pandemic's first year was the UK, where death rates were 15 percent higher than they were before it began.
The rapid spread of the alpha (or Kent) variant just as the vaccine rollout was beginning and a terrible first wave combined to cause a significant death toll. .
Poland, among other eastern European nations, missed the spring 2020 wave but overtook the UK in terms of death toll in the winter of 2020–21.
In the summer of 2020, the death rates in the US kept rising steadily, and by the end of the year, they had surpassed those in the UK.
In the second year of the pandemic, death rates decreased in many European countries as vaccination campaigns got underway.
According to Professor Devi Sridhar of the University of Edinburgh, the UK's vaccination program is viewed as a "global exemplar.".
Not only were there a certain number of doses administered, but they were also given to those who were most at risk.
With death rates below historical averages, the UK appeared to be performing better than any other major European economy, with the exception of Spain.
As many nations resumed their opening up in the third year, death rates increased there.
The nations that had fared better in the first two years of the pandemic (and overall) included Germany, New Zealand, and Norway, where some of the biggest rebounds were discovered.
In the first year of the pandemic, Norway had far fewer fatalities than Sweden, but after three years, things have become more comparable between the two nations.
Prof. Sridhar warns that it is difficult to make a direct comparison between Scandinavian nations and the UK, asserting that "we'd never look like either Sweden or Norway" and characterizing them as being very dissimilar to the UK in terms of being "healthier, wealthier, and more equal.". .
It would require extensive research to separate the effects of all the potential causes of each country's pandemic outcomes, including preparedness, population health, the timing and severity of lockdowns, social support, the rollout of vaccines, access to healthcare, and other factors.
However, some contend that there are lessons for the UK to be learned even before we think about potential pandemics in the future.
Veena Raleigh, a health think tank employee, claims that the UK's high pandemic death toll "built on a decade of lackluster performance on life expectancy.". Government intervention, according to her, has "never been more urgent" in order to improve population health and reverse that trend.
Eurostat, the Office for National Statistics, the National Records of Scotland, the Northern Ireland Statistics Research Agency, the Center for Disease Control, the United States Census Bureau, and Stats NZ were the sources from which we gathered data on deaths in five-year age groups and population estimates/projections.
Using the 2013 European Standard Population, we determined the death rates for each age group and added them together to create an age-adjusted death rate.
There were some countries that lacked all of the age bands. For instance, US data used 10-year age bands for individuals aged five to 24 and older than 55. Broader age ranges can overstate excess mortality numbers like the ones we calculated by a percentage point or so.
Additional reporting by Wesley Stephenson, Callum Thomson, Isabella Worth, Jana Tauschinski, and Liana Bravo.
