Here is a somewhat dense technical paper on excess deaths in England. (Not the UK, notice!)

It is not light reading, so I will just pull out a few sentences. If people want to discuss these in the context of the entire paper, I can do so.


While UK deaths attributed to Covid are the highest in Europe, the excess death data are likely to be more robust for the reasons given. England’s outcomes are the worst of the 24 countries or states for which EuroMOMO reports Z-scores. It is followed by Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and France. The total measure for all age groups up to the week ending 26 April 2020 (called week 17 by EuroMOMO), reveals that at the peak in week 15, England’s Z-score was 39.7 and in week 16 it was 36.9. These Z-scores correspond approximately to ONS data on the week ending April 17, of 21,182 deaths in England, compared to the ‘normal’ number of 9787 (based on the average of the previous 5
years). Excess deaths thus, were 11,395, or more than twice the expected number
...
The peak rate of excess deaths in England for the most vulnerable age group, the over-65s is also the
highest for the 24 countries or regions compared


...

More disturbing is the comparative story for the 15-64 age group, where England’s relative record in excess mortality in the Covid-19 era is particularly poor. At its peak (i.e. in the week with the highest excess mortality) , it is 2.7 times worse than the weekly peak in next worst country, Spain, almost 4 times worse than France and Belgium, and almost 5 times worse than Italy’s peak weekly excess deaths in the age group