IT will soon be 7 years since COVID-19 began. It’s hard for me to grasp or get around the fact that 7 years ago we had the party which preceded the pandemic and it was only 3 years after “Pep” began at ManCity. Sense of time seems to have been warped somewhat.

Years ago I kept track of excess deaths in the UK. Maybe that has improved, maybe not. I no longer keep track of it; it has been years since I last checked. I moved on. I do other things.

The gym shut down in 2020 and a year later we altogether stopped going there (after 20 years in that gym, for me at least) despite it still being open. Life has changed so much not due to the pandemic per se but factors that changed at that time.

T may seem repetitive, but this is still important. It’s also more relevant than ever, even if the media chooses to brush it under the rug.

New ONS data came out this morning (in Microsoft’s proprietary format, as usual). 9,867 England and Wales deaths in Week 13 of 2019 compared to 11,241 in the same week this year.

It’s like this almost every week, including the prior week (12). I check this every Wednesday (for years already).

Is it OK to ask my government what has caused this very sharp increase?

Does it make one a “crank” for asking?

KEPT refreshing this page and a minute ago the data was finally released, at 9:30, as usual for Wednesdays. Before COVID-19 the average number of deaths in Week 7 was 11,301 (England and Wales). Now it’s 12,366. That’s an increase of more than 1,000 (deaths) for this week alone.

Last week: In First 5 Weeks of 2025 67,630 People Died in England and Wales Compared to 58,461 in the Same Period in 2019

HIS morning’s new numbers look like this:

It may not seem like that says very much until one checks pre-COVID-19 numbers for the same timespan. It was 11,660 in 2019 and about the same for prior years (average of 2014-2019).

New data out today.

2019

2025

Almost 10,000 more deaths in about a month.

T IS WEDNESDAY again, so there were new mortality figures this morning.

In week 5 of 2019 we had just over 11k deaths in England in Wales.

Now, in 2025, in week 5 we had 13,712 deaths. That’s nearly 14k.

Last week we saw similar increases.

T is just what the numbers released yesterday morning say:

Compare to 2019 (before COVID-19):

So we’re looking at almost 2,000 additional deaths (for a single week)…. more than before.

Maybe it’s over 2,000 if one includes Scotland and Northern Ireland.