Death rates ‘are now back to normal levels’
With toll falling, next set of ONS figures expected to show mortality figures have returned to normal
Britain’s death rates are now likely to be back to normal, scientists say. Analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics shows deaths from Covid-19 are falling at such a rate that the next set of figures should show no excess mortality. The latest ONS statistics show that in the week ending May 22, deaths in hospital in England and Wales were already slightly lower than average. And scientists said the next set of figures should show death rates across all settings back to normal.
BRITAIN’S death rates are now likely to be back to normal, scientists say.
Analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics shows deaths from Covid-19 are falling at such a rate that the next set of figures should show no excess mortality.
The latest ONS statistics show that in the week ending May 22, deaths in hospital in England and Wales were already slightly lower than the fiveyear average.
And scientists said the next set of figures to be published, covering the week which ended last Friday, should show that overall death rates across all settings were now back to normal.
Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence-based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said: “The deaths look like they will be back to where they should be normally by next week.
“There’s been a continued reduction in hospital deaths, care home outbreaks are coming down … I’m expecting we’ll be back to where we should be,” he said. However, he said continued trends depended on handling of future outbreaks and the effectiveness of test and trace.
Kevin Mcconway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University, said: “I don’t want to be a prophet of gloom, but I would urge some caution about these positive trends.” He said the impact of the recent loosening of the lockdown had yet to be seen, with most experts suggesting a time lag of around two to three weeks between infection and death.
The figures for the week ending May 22 show some regions already had death rates close to normal for this time of year. The South East recorded mortality levels just 8 per cent above the five-year average, while rates in Wales were 12.7 per cent higher than normal. However, in the North East deaths were 41 per cent higher than average, while the East region had fatalities 30 per cent above the norm.
The weekly statistics showed that overall in the week ending May 22, the number of deaths across the UK was 23 per cent higher than average, with 13,826 deaths in total. The weekly figures for England and Wales showed that in the week ending May 22 there were 4,611 deaths in hospitals, a fall of 24 on the five-year average of 4,635. Of those, 1,320 were linked to Covid-19.
However, experts warned that the low number of deaths in hospitals being shown in recent records was partly because the NHS had closed so many services – leaving many patients to die elsewhere from other conditions.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths at home rose by 1,108 – from 2,421 to 3,529. Of those, just 109 fatalities were linked to Covid-19.
The number of deaths in care homes was 62 per cent higher than the fiveyear average, with 3,350 deaths, compared with an average of 2,061.
Sir David Spiegelhalter, chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said the figures suggested that patients who would normally have received hospital treatment for conditions other than Covid, were instead dying at home.
“As the Covid deaths came in, the non-covid deaths went right down, essentially as the hospitals, they didn’t shut up shop, but they closed down so many of their services, and there was a big reduction in people going to hospital and that’s still there, this deficit of
‘There’s been a continued reduction in hospital deaths, care home outbreaks are coming down … I’m expecting we’ll be back to where we should be’
non-covid deaths. The crucial issue is – where have these gone?”
He said that there had been a “massive number” of people dying at home, from conditions other than Covid-19.
“I think it really looks as if these are people who have not gone to hospital and died at home,” he said, warning that this had left families facing an “extraordinary” burden.
The figures showed the number of weekly deaths involving coronavirus in England and Wales fell by almost a third in a week, reaching its lowest level for seven weeks.
A total of 2,872 coronavirus deaths were registered across the country in the week ending May 22, down from 4,213 in the previous week – the lowest total seen since March.
Nick Stripe, head of health analysis at the Office for National Statistics, said despite the number of overall deaths falling, the figures for the week ending May 22 showed around the same number of deaths as would be expected in midwinter.
The statistics showed that the number of deaths linked to coronavirus had risen to 48,106 in the UK.
Overall, there had been 190,000 deaths in the UK during the pandemic – nearly 62,000 above what would be expected. Covid-19 was responsible for more than three quarters of the excess deaths in England and Wales, the statistics showed.
The figures also showed more than 25,000 excess deaths in care homes in England and Wales between March 21 and May 22, compared with the fiveyear average. Fewer than 13,000 of those were linked to Covid-19.
While there had been almost 14,000 more deaths at home than would have been expected since March, fewer than 2,000 had been Covid-19 related.
The figures published by the ONS were around a third higher than the daily deaths statistics reported at the time by the Government. The ONS statistics counted any death certificate registered with a mention of Covid-19.
The latest government figures showed a total of 34,369 deaths, with daily figures on Sunday and Monday suggesting they had fallen to the lowest levels seen since lockdown. However yesterday they rose from 111 to 324 a day.
Separately, data from Public Health England showed at least 169 care workers and home carers had died with coronavirus. Deaths among those in the care sector were 1.7 times higher compared with previous years, according to figures published yesterday.
Public Health England’s review into the risks different groups face from Covid-19 is a useful contribution to the evidence base. The largest disparity identified was by age, with those aged 80 or older 70 times more likely to die if they have been diagnosed with Covid-19 than those aged 40 or under. The risk of dying is higher for men than women, higher for those living in more deprived areas than those in the least deprived, and higher for ethnic minority groups than for white people.
The Government has at times given the impression that such disparities do not exist, with some people questioning why fit and healthy 20 year-olds should not be permitted to return to normal life given that they are unlikely to fall ill with coronavirus. Yet there are also dangers in debating information without full context. Public Health England’s review makes clear, for example, that its analysis of ethnic minority death rates was not able to include the effects of occupation, comorbidities or obesity. “Other evidence,” it says, “has shown that when these are included, the difference in risk of death among hospitalised patients is greatly reduced.” Such nuance is important if the review is to lead to policies that will actually better protect vulnerable groups, rather than pointless grandstanding.
Ministers and their scientific advisers have been, on the whole, poor at releasing timely and comprehensive information about the pandemic and the response to it. The membership list of Sage, the Government’s scientific advisory group on emergencies, was only belatedly published, and it is still accused of not issuing full details of its deliberations quickly. Public health officials, meanwhile, have shown no inclination to explain the precise rationale for the myriad new guidelines they are designing to regulate the minutiae of our daily lives as lockdown is gradually eased. This is problematic because it leaves us none the wiser as to whether the economic costs of such measures have been balanced against the public health benefit.
There is nothing sustainable about the state micromanaging one of the most advanced economies in the world. Individuals will have to be trusted to make their own decisions, and exercise common sense. For that, they not only need full transparency from Government, but a grown-up conversation about the complexities of the science.