The number of additional deaths in the UK has exceeded 100,000, confirming the country’s position as one of the worst developed countries hit by coronavirus pandemic.
An additional 104,520 people have died since March 2020 across the UK. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, there have been six deaths in every five people who would expect to die in an average year.
Too many deaths are higher than the five-year average and are seen as the gold standard in explaining how many people have died as a result of the pandemic.
The UK’s highest Covid death toll since the start of the year has pushed overall mortality rates to a new peak. In the most recent week, coronavirus accounted for 44% of all deaths across the UK, the highest proportion of deaths due to the virus to date according to a data analysis by the Guardian.
Too many deaths are running at 20% above normal since the outbreak began, rising at 109% across the UK in one week in April, more than double the average number of deaths for that time of year.
Additional deaths
The nature of further deaths in the UK has changed across the pandemic. Overweight mortality was more pronounced in the first wave in early 2020, with 48% more deaths than usual in the three months to mid-June.
This slowed down in the summer with too many deaths closely monitoring coronavirus deaths for a period of time. However, a winter rise in Covid deaths has contributed to too many deaths rising to 24% above a typical year in the past three months.
Sarah Caul, head of mortality at the ONS, said better second-wave judgment contributed to the change in trends. “An important part of the first wave of non-Covids seems to have been Covid’s cases that were not easily diagnosed at the time due to less testing and less clinical experience with a new disease. This could have a significant impact on older people with dementia and general frailty. ”
She also noted the change that Covid has made to the usual seasonal patterns: in normal times many winter deaths are due to the flu, but in the winter of 2020-21 Covid has “something to replace the flu ”.
“Locking precautions are very likely to reduce the spread of non-Covid infectious diseases, and as it is more contagious and deadly than the flu, vulnerable people are more likely to die from Covid this winter when they may have died of the flu or otherwise. infectious disease in a different year. “
However, new data published by the Office for National Statistics shows that England and Wales have had high mortality rates since the beginning of the year, with deaths averaging 41.3% a week to January 22nd.
David Leon, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the lock has played a role and in particular its impact on the most vulnerable groups to Covid.
“It has been said that social pace, hand washing and the highest flu vaccination uptake ever seen in the UK in 2020 could explain low flu levels. This may be coupled with a much more limited movement of older people due to shielding of the ‘normal’ causes for excessive winter mortality. “
The figure includes all deaths recorded by the Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency up to 22 January in England and Wales and Northern Ireland and 18 January in Scotland.
The baseline for comparison with the five-year average is the equivalent week in 2015 to 2019 inclusive according to a methodology used by the Office for National Statistics.