It's hard to tell without doing work I am not planning to do whether Britain's increase in mortality is due more to the deadliness of the new version of the virus or its contagiousness. But some combination of the two is driving up the UK's total number of deaths like crazy.
Can't blame the government. Viruses evolve. That's their thing. But damn.
At least the vaccination process is humming along at a decent rate. 8.6% of the population has had at least one jab.