According to the ONS the death rate in England and Wales in 2020 was 10.2 per thousand of the population, from all causes. The death rate in 2003 from all causes was 10.3 per thousand, and 10.2 in 2002 and 2001. I’m just about old enough to remember the start of the new millennium although I was a small child, and what I can’t recall is the whole country being locked in their homes under threat of prosecution, and businesses being forced into bankruptcy by the government of the time. Perhaps all that did happen and I was just too young to realise it at the time?