Excess deaths reference the number of deaths which are above the average for a corresponding period in the previous five years.
In total, the ONS report found there were 40,114 excess deaths in homes in England and Wales between March 7 and January 1, of which 3,881, involved Covid-19.
Richard Murray, chief executive of The King’s Fund, told the BBC: “The UK has one of the highest rates of excess deaths in the world, with more excess deaths per million people than most other European countries or the US.
“It will take a public inquiry to determine exactly what went wrong, but mistakes have been made.
“In a pandemic, mistakes cost lives. Decisions to enter lockdown have consistently come late, with the government failing to learn from past mistakes or the experiences of other countries.”
