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An interesting, often asked, and very reasonable question is regarding the level of forward displacement (ie how many people would have died soon anyway.) Let's take a look using the CMI view of excess deaths, allowing for age standardisation. 1/8 https://twitter.com/JohnBradbury12A/status/1329176135570219010
If a lot of the first wave deaths are people who were close to death anyway then we would expect mortality to be much lower than expected subsequently. The CMI graph shows that excess deaths peaked around early June at around 59k (as stated in the reports). 2/8
After that it drifted down slightly, to around 55k at the end of September, before starting to grow again. But that was despite ONS recording 4k more COVID deaths in that period. So it's possible that around 8k of the 59k were accelerated to some extent... 3/8
... though even that's not certain. If you look at the graph there was a similar improvement in the summer as recently as 2018. But even taking that number at face value, it's clear that the vast majority of early excess deaths were not at death's door. 4/8
Once the second wave starts, its impact overwhelms any residual forward displacement from the first wave, but given very low volumes in the summer, they won't be material. 5/8
How long should we attribute deaths to forward displacement? I'd suggest not very long. Many people live with comorbidities for years, as @ActuarybyDay discusses here (4.40 in) - well worth a listen. 6/8 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kdr6
The discussion also refers to a claim by @ProfKarolSikora that the 60k excess deaths total would reduce by half by August, because the rest were accelerated. I think the evidence is clear now that such a claim was overstated, as @ActuarybyDay suggested in the programme. 7/8
So in conclusion, yes it would appear that there was some forward displacement of mortality, but by the end of the first wave there were still around 55k excess deaths for E&W, a figure which is now moving back up towards 60k. 8/8 END
