British MPs demand investigation into sharp increase in fatalities

(MENAFN) United Kingdom MPs have requested an investigation after being alarmed by national figures indicating 20 percent too many fatalities per week, the Daily Mail reported on Tuesday. Few of these deaths could be linked to the virus, unlike the previous time excess mortality reached such numbers, during the second Covid-19 outbreak.

Conservative MP Esther McVey mocked Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty in front of the House of Commons on Tuesday for attributing the rise in non-Covid excess deaths to "patients not getting statins or blood pressure medicines during the pandemic," adding that the monthly statin prescription figures had remained constant.

“Where is the evidence? And if there isn’t one, what is causing these excess deaths?” She demanded the minister, asking “commit to an urgent and thorough investigation of the matter.”

In response to Steve Barclay's unwillingness to address the matter, Labour's opposition minister for public health Andrew Gwynne referred to him as "part man, part ostrich" and charged PM Rishi Sunak's administration of "denial and buck-passing."

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