A more cynical question: can a PM win the next elections or politically survive the next weeks if a lot of people die and he just shrugged his shoulders, when the rest of the world did their best to keep people alive, successfully or not? I bet he'll have to change course pretty soon.
In terms of realpolitik, I guess it depends on the extent, the speed and the affected population.
If it's a lot of people over a long time, they'll be out. If it's a lot of people over a short time, it'll come down to who dies, and how much time until the next election. The young and middle-aged, and generally "the productive" people die: they're out. If it's the old and those close to retirement age, it will be, quite literally, a rejuvenation for the country, lots of wealth will be passed down, the pension and health system will be unburdened, the job market might open up for the young, that could lead to a strong economic improvement for plenty of people.
The personal economic situation is very important, but you'll need some time between the event and the election. If aunt Mary just died last week, you're maybe not going to vote for the guy in office that is responsible for the policies. If aunt Mary died three years ago, your finances have significantly improved, you've inherited a house and your future looks bright, why experiment with a new leadership?
And that’s the real calculus here: how will this be perceived after the dust settles? If the population doesn’t think their leaders did enough, there’s risk of reprisals. If the government does the wrong thing but people think it was right, everything is fine. But if the govt did the right thing and people think it was wrong, correctly or incorrectly, there may be reprisals.
Irrelevant. All that matters is the editorials and vox pops in the months immediately prior to an election. Voters don’t remember where they left their keys, never mind last year - and if the current U.K. gov have shown anything, it is that they can and will win every election until the end of time - they’ve presided over a decade of unmitigated disaster, and their approval just keeps growing.
No, we’ll be talking about how Jeremy Corbyn singlehandedly introduced covid to the U.K. It won’t be “true”, but that is... irrelevant.
The impacts of Brexit are relatively abstract; COVID-19 is piles of dead bodies and 1 in 20 families losing a grandparent. Spinning that positively is mighty challenging.
I don't personally think politics are playing a major role in these decisions. UK elections are 5 years away, that's a lot of time for them to change the narrative if things don't end well.
With an overwhelmed health system and shortage of ventilators, mortality can exceed 5% in the general population. If that happens, everyone will loose a loved one.
