Almost 7,000 people have died of Covid in England and Wales since PM lifted all restrictions

Close to 7,000 people have died of Covid in England and Wales since the prime minister lifted all restrictions at the end of February.

Office for National Statistics data – correct up until the end of April – shows there were 6,664 deaths that mentioned Covid on the certificate from the week after all restrictions were lifted.

That’s more than the total number of deaths registered by Denmark (6,224), Latvia (5,790) and Venezuela (5,709) since the start of the pandemic, and more than Cyprus, Taiwan, Jamaica and Malta combined.

Johnson removed the legal requirement to self-isolate for people who test positive for Covid on 24th February, as well as all social distancing rules and mask-wearing requirements.

At the time Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “To allow significant dismantling of the testing infrastructure built up in last two years would be inexcusable negligence given ongoing risks.”

Free universal testing was scrapped on April 1st.

Here’s ONS data on deaths involving Covid since then:

4th March 2022: 670 deaths
11th March 2022: 671 deaths
18th March 2022: 683 deaths
25th March 2022: 780 deaths
1st April 2022: 853 deaths
8th April 2022: 960 deaths
15th April 2022: 1,005 deaths
22nd April 2022: 1,042 deaths

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.