The true impact of Covid on UK mortality and health

The first UK lockdown was announced on 23 March 2020, with the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson issuing a ‘stay at home’ order. This was lifted in stages between May and July, followed by further restrictions in September and October, and another full lockdown in November 2020. Most of the country was still under significant restrictions at the end of 2020, and a third national lockdown was introduced from January to March in 2021.

Five years after that first lockdown, let’s examine how UK mortality developed during the pandemic and how things look today. I’ll also investigate the effect that Covid may have had on various aspects of the nation’s health, and how this might affect mortality into the future.

Mortality rates

While a well-documented slowdown in UK life expectancy improvements had started in around 2011, 2019 saw by some distance the lightest mortality up to that point, with death rates in the months leading up to March 2020 also being relatively low. However, as Covid spread, the months after March 2020 saw very high numbers of deaths, with mortality rates remaining elevated in subsequent years.

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