I guess for me it seems different to normal public health stuff because of the speed - but perhaps your second world war figure is exactly what I am getting at.

I guess for me it seems different to normal public health stuff because of the speed - but perhaps your second world war figure is exactly what I am getting at. COVID is on the same scale as the UK's losses in the second world war - it's worse than the blitz, for example, but less deadly than the entire british involvement. The second world war caused seismic political and cultural changes in the UK. It's probably the most significant moment in the UK's history since the napoleonic wars. Now, I don't think casualty figures alone provoke the kind of reassessment and realignment that made WW2 such a watershed, but honestly, I think they probably should.