Deaths in London now below normal

LONDON now has lower than average death rates after once being the city worst hit by the pandemic, official figures showed yesterday.

A total of 891 people died in London in the first week of June – slightly above a quarter of the numbers dying each week at the height of the outbreak in April. It became the first part of the country to record deaths below five-year average weekly levels as Office for National Statistics figures pointed to the continued decline in the virus toll.

There were 1,588 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week that ended on June 5 for which doctors mentioned Covid19 on death certificates – down from 1,822 in the previous seven-day period.

The decline came despite the impact of the late May bank holiday which meant the recording of many deaths was delayed.

It is the lowest total since 539 virus-related deaths were registered in the week which ended on March 27 – when Boris Johnson ordered the lockdown.

A total of 14.8 per cent of all deaths in England and Wales during the week ending June 5 were linked to the virus, down from 18.5 per cent the week before. The share of deaths which doctors found were linked to Covid-19 went down for the seventh week running. There was also new evidence that the heavy losses from the virus in care homes are easing. There were 266 virus deaths in care homes in the week which ended on June 12, according to the Care Quality Commission. This was less than 11 per cent of the 2,473 care home Covid deaths in a week at the peak of the outbreak in mid-April.

Dementia campaigners said that deaths in care homes are still 16 per cent higher than numbers that would normally be expected at this time of year. The count from the ONS considers both overall numbers of deaths that have been registered and those for which doctors note that Covid-19 was involved. A high proportion of deaths that are not officially linked to the virus are thought to have been those of older people with underlying health conditions who had never been tested for Covid-19.

The 10,709 total of deaths in England and Wales in the week to June 5 was up from the previous week’s 9,824, mainly because of the bank holiday effect. The ONS report said 29.6 per cent of Covid-19-linked deaths since the start of the pandemic were in care homes, with 63.7 per cent in hospital.