In the UK we keep being given figures comparing 2020 to the last 5 year average. For a start, an average is just that. Secondly, there is a range of high and low figures to give us the average. Thirdly, 5 years is nothing. We have Office Of National Statistics figures that go back to 1990, so 30 years, so lets compare to that. Let's look at the tread in that time, then we must adjust for population size and as this is a disease of the old, let's look at the number of people in the affected age range.

IIRC, the death per thousand last year was 10.3, high compared to recent years, but about the same as 2003 and lower than 2000. The issue is, that in recent years we have become used to death rates per thousand in the 9's, but this just means you have vulnerable people sort of backing up in the system because we keep on keeping them alive longer than their design life. Then covid comes along, cleans out the vulnerable and sorts the long term average out.