Hospital deaths ‘close to baseline’ as mortality rates near five-year average

‘We are essentially having a winter in health in terms of mortality but in late spring and early summer’

EXCESS deaths in hospitals have fallen to below the five-year average, government data has shown, suggesting coronavirus is no longer killing more people than would be expected to die at this time of year.

For the week ending May 8, the number of deaths in hospitals for all causes was 114 lower than the five-year average for the same week.

The number of excess care home deaths is still more than 2,000 higher than normal, but it has fallen by 2,247 deaths from 4,331 the previous week.

Prof Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, told the daily briefing: “We are essentially having a winter in health in terms of mortality but in late spring and early summer.

“Looking at the number of deaths in excess of what you would expect at this time of year compared to previous years, in hospitals there was a significant peak in excess all-cause mortality in early April and that has come right down. Now it’s very close to baseline.”

Office for National Statistics figures released this week showed there were 121,002 deaths registered in England and Wales between March 21 and May 8 – 49,575 more than the average for the previous five years. However the number of deaths has been falling and there was a drop of 2,105 deaths – 34.8 per cent – between the weeks ending May 1 and May 8.

Prof David Spiegelhalter, the chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said excess deaths may start to dip in the coming weeks because many people who would have died naturally at a later date, died earlier of coronavirus.

The ONS cautioned that the early May bank holiday had affected the number of registrations of deaths from all causes.