^ That simply isn't a valid way of using the data.
As you know, I wasn't commenting on mortality rates, I was commenting on the quote you extracted from the article you linked. Anyone who has a basic understanding of what was actually happening with large-scale movement and congregation of people in the UK from mi-June to mid-July can see a perfectly good explanation for the change in infection rates. That inability to analyse trends in the numbers has been reflected in journalism worldwide. Here, eg, is an article published at the start of August which asserts that the UK Delta outbreak was "collapsing" - again, a stupid point-in-time analysis that applies no subtlety in assessing data changes:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08 ... -ours.html
As to the deaths, what we do know is that, in the UK, young people are getting severe disease and dying in larger numbers than formerly. That's probably because the disease is now largely a disease of the unvaccinated (the chances of getting COVID in the UK - as distinct from getting it severely - if you are fully vaccinated seem to be of the order of 40% to 50% of the chances if you are unvaccinated) and mostly younger people are getting it. Since COVID - in all its forms - has been mostly deadly in older people, since the UK vaccination program has focused on older people and, in particular, the elderly, and since the data indicates that about 9 times as many people aged 15-24 have been contracting COVID as people aged 75+ (the vast majority of whom are now, of course, vaccinated, there), the death rates are lower. See, eg,
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/227713/ ... er-double/
None of that means that Delta is less dangerous than earlier strains. In fact, it seems to be both more contagious and more likely to cause severe disease or death in young people. What it does mean is that vaccination is critical. It is critical for 2 reasons - first, to protect the presently vulnerable (and, in the UK, that has been largely achieved) and secondly, to drive down the overall numbers who contract and pass on the virus, so that the risk (or, at least, the pace) of newly-emerging variants is reduced. Most vaccination programs around the world have, to date, been reasonably woeful at the second of those things because younger people have been left out of the queue.
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