Like a cobra poking it’s head out of the Fakir’s basket, like Nessy sticking its neck out of the Loch, the black mortality line is a stark reminder for those who think they’ve got away with it, that Covid-19 is not being stood down.
It is worrying when you discover that scenes in North Devon remind the police of an August Bank Holiday.
The Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) has published its analysis of today’s ONS release.
Key points:
– death rates are 1.4 times the same week last year
– they estimate that there have been around 61,000 excess deaths in the UK this year pic.twitter.com/YNEwbuoAGX— COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group (@COVID19actuary) May 19, 2020
In case you are under any illusion, the virus is still wiping out small towns of us every week
The CMI’s Mortality Monitor is publicly available.
Link https://t.co/MSFqPlvqgK pic.twitter.com/hUBz7HNJrh
— COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group (@COVID19actuary) May 19, 2020
And while North Devon and the South West in general have seen little of the infection, it will not have benefited from the immunisation seen in more built up areas.
It now seems it was a cocky sense of invulnerability that led to Britain having the second highest death count in the world and if we continue to ignore the very grave threat to life and health of this pandemic, then areas like the South West will likely feel the brunt of a second wave.
It is really painful to hear that many of the cars found in North Devon car parks come from outside the South West.
Because things are getting better – does not mean things are going well. It was all going well on the graph in January, February and March, but we now know that was when things went wrong.

Not going well at all