No need for estimation, just go to the data (England and Wales): https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/w

No need for estimation, just go to the data (England and Wales): https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... So compared to 2018 and 2019, there is no change in deaths for those aged 45 and younger. However there is an increase in death apparent for those aged above that, such that overall deaths when comparing up to Week 46 are 9.5% higher in 2020 than 2019. However, 2019 was a very weak flu season, with no excess death periods in England: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#z-scores-by-country https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#z-scores-by-country If you reduce 2020 deaths by the amount that didn't occur in 2019 due to the weak flu season but did occur in 2018, then 2020's deaths are only 6.8% higher than 2018. Consider also that in those two years the population of the UK aged 45 and above increased by 1.7%. The question is - is COVID just shuffling fundamentally unhealthy people off their mortal coil a bit faster than would have occurred naturally? How many COVID deaths are really due to ongoing societal issues like Vitamin D deficiency, air pollution, poor diets and obesity? Or simply just old age? Is shutting down and completely disrupting society for something which is about 5% worse than a regular flu season in terms of deaths really justified? Would we have noticed without the media attention?