Rise reported in number of non-Covid-19 related deaths

THE Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown appears to have led to an increase in deaths from other causes, experts warn.

There has been an increase in deaths caused due to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, new figures show.

Deaths caused by asthma and by diabetes are also up. And there has been an increase in deaths caused by “symptoms signs and ill-defined conditions”, which is a term used to describe deaths due to old age or general frailty.

Experts are unsure how many of these deaths are actually a result of Covid-19 going undiagnosed.

They say other possibilities are that people are not receiving medical care for other conditions, or are suffering from stress.

In the North East, the death rate is higher than normal – even when deaths from Covid-19 are excluded.

In recent years, the average death rate in the North East for the final week of April was 21.9 deaths per 100,000 people. But this year, the figure for deaths in the region that don’t involve Covid-19 was 24.3 deaths per 100,000 people.

The figures were published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which said: “London and the North East have particularly large differences between their respective five-year average mortality rates and non-Covid-19 2020 mortality rates.”

Nationwide, a total of 130,009 deaths were registered across England and Wales between March 7 and May 1 – which is 46,380 higher than in a normal year.

But 12,900 of these excess deaths, more than one in four, did not appear to involve Covid-19.

The number of people dying in hospital from conditions unrelated to Covid-19 was lower than normal, which suggests people who would usually have received hospital care might not be getting it. The number dying at home and in care homes from conditions apparently unrelated to Covid-19 was higher than normal.

But the ONS said it wasn’t clear what exactly was causing people to die. The report said: “Deaths due to causes such as asthma and diabetes increased up to the week ending 24 April 2020 and occurred increasingly outside hospital; this could suggest a delay in care for these conditions is leading to an increase in deaths, although this rise could also be related to undiagnosed Covid-19.”