As Covid deaths in the UK surpass the grim milestone of 200,000, what have we learned?| Devi Sridhar

While new variants and vaccinations have reduced death rates, and we are living with Covid, misconceptions still linger

On 17 March 2020, the UK chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said that keeping the number of UK deaths below 20,000 would be a good outcome from the pandemic. That number was on par with the number of lives that seasonal flu takes each year, the most deadly infectious disease in Britain until then. Two years in, we've now crossed 200,000 deaths: 10 times higher than initially expected. What have we learned about Covid-19 in that timespan, and what old beliefs and myths from the early pandemic still persist?

First, Covid-19 is a disease that can also kill young people, especially those who are unvaccinated. The idea that Covid is only a threat to older people is still prevalent. But consider that the US has passed a million deaths, and roughly a quarter of those deaths are in people of working age, that is those under 64. Another quarter are in people between the ages of 65 and 74. This is not a disease that just kills over-80s as the prime minister, Boris Johnson, reportedly messaged: Hardly anyone under 60 goes into hospital ... and of those virtually all survive. And I no longer buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff. Folks I think we may need to recalibrate ... There are max 3m in this country aged over 80."

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh