How long before Covid-19 deaths in Britain hit zero?

The number of deaths from coronavirus in Britain is steadily creeping down, with just 36 notifications on Sunday, the lowest since March 22. But how long will it be until the country records no deaths at all? The answer is tricky because as the first wave of the epidemic starts to peter out, the numbers become increasingly erratic. Yesterday, the number of recorded deaths was 38.

A month ago, when about 230 people were dying daily, the number of deaths in England and Wales was falling by an average of 30 each day, which might have suggested there would be no more patients dying by the start of June.

Yet, by the end of May, the daily death rate was still hovering around 188, and the rate of decline has fallen to just 11 each day. When the new Office of National Statistics (ONS) mortality figures are released today, the rate may have dropped again.

In the middle of May, experts at Oxford University suggested there would be no more deaths in England and Wales by the end of June, which is still looking like a good estimate. If the decline of 11 deaths-a-day holds steady, it could potentially hit zero this week.

Yet an overall zero figure for Britain is more difficult because the devolved nations have been following their own paths and are on different trajectories.

On June 8, Scotland reported its first day without any deaths since its lockdown began on March 23, but by June 13, the numbers had risen to five.

On May 26, Northern Ireland also reported no deaths for the first time since March 18 but likewise, the numbers have since risen. Wales has yet to hit the zero death milestone, with many cases still present in the north and England is still in double figures.

Dr Jason Oke, senior statistician at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford, who has been crunching the numbers, said: “The last time we looked at the ONS data (England and Wales), deaths were falling at around 11 per day.

“At the last count there were 188 deaths on May 29. Now you could extrapolate that but it is fraught with problems. [Today] the ONS will revise the figures for the end of May which could well mean the 11 deaths a day figure is revised downwards and the new data may also show a slower trend.”

Government data also shows that there are 392 people still on ventilators in Britain and around 500 new admissions each day across the UK.

“Even though the proportion of people admitted to hospital with Covid and dying from Covid seems to be declining, this suggests the death figure may remain above zero for some time to come,” added Dr Oke.

The current death rate for the whole country is around one per cent and will be higher for those admitted to hospital so until admissions are below 100 a day, death rates are unlikely to drop to zero in the following weeks.

Deaths in care homes also peaked later than hospitals, by around 10 days, so the death rate is tailing off more slowly than it might ordinarily have done. However there does appear to be some light at the end of the tunnel when looking at data from individual trusts.

Analysis by Oxford University shows that as of Sunday, nearly two thirds of trusts (65.6 per cent) had reported no deaths in the previous 48 hours and more than one third (35.9 per cent) had no deaths in a week.

Of type 1 hospital trusts – with full A&E and resuscitation facilities – nearly a quarter (22.8 per cent) have not reported a death in the past week.

The reproduction R rate is estimated at between 0.7 and 0.9 across the country meaning anyone with the virus is passing it on to fewer than one other person, an indicator of steady decline.

ONS figures show that there were around 30,000 infections present in Britain at any given time from May 25 to June 7, compared to 152,000 between April 27 to May 10.

And admissions are falling quite dramatically. There were 525 admissions on June 9 down from 722 on June 2, a decrease of 25 per cent.