LONDON – There are no warning sirens, nor a rush for shelter. No neighborhoods of collapsed rubble with bodies buried inside from Nazi Germany bombardment.
It is quieter than all that. But the United Kingdom has now suffered its worst civilian loss of life since World War II by a significant number.
Some 70,000 non-combatants perished in the 1940s. Three quarters of a century later, it's 100,000 taken by the coronavirus pandemic, an adversary no less relentless and fearsome and one whose defeat is still some time away.
There are 100,000 dead — from a population of 67 million. In the U.S., the worst-hit nation by the virus, more than 420,000 have died from a population of 330 million.