Excess deaths could have returned to normal levels in February
UK may be three weeks ahead of where modellers expected figures to be in the second wave
‘Our forecasts of pandemic variables sit well with evidence on the efficacy of the first dose of the vaccine in protecting the over-70s’
EXCESS deaths in Britain may already be back to normal levels, following steep falls in recent weeks, experts have said.
Latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures for death registrations show there were 13,809 deaths in England and Wales for the week ending Feb 19, some 2,182 above the five-year average – or 18.8 per cent more than usual.
In that week, the ONS reported 4,079 Covid deaths registered.
The ONS will publish registered deaths for the week ending Feb 26 next Tuesday, but government data suggest there were around 1,636 Covid deaths in England and Wales during that week.
With around 2,443 fewer Covid deaths expected, the weekly figure would be slightly lower than the fiveyear average of 11,548, effectively ending the impact of the second wave.
Prof Carl Heneghan, the director of the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said if current trends continued, the next bulletin would show deaths were roughly back to normal by the end of February.
Plotting the excess deaths using a Florence Nightingale chart (pictured) shows that deaths could be back to the five-year average by week eight, or the week ending Feb 26.
ONS deaths have been running slightly higher than government dashboard deaths because they include people who died from coronavirus beyond the 28-day limit used by the Government as well as some backdated registrations.
Latest dashboard data shows Britain recorded 242 deaths yesterday, falling 33.6 per cent in the past week. Cases are also declining rapidly, with just 46,796 people testing positive in the last week, a fall of 34.4 per cent.
Hospital admissions are also down 29 per cent in the past week with the number of Covid patients in England falling to 10,000. Boris Johnson promised to follow data not dates when relaxing restrictions, but experts now agree the figures are better than expected.
Analysis by The Daily Telegraph found that England is currently around three weeks ahead of where modellers expected the country to be by this stage in the second wave.
Modelling by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) suggests that if current trends continue, when schools go back on Monday daily cases will be just 4,300 in the UK, admissions at 600 and deaths close to 200. Looking further ahead to when nonessential retail is scheduled to reopen on April 12, the NIESR said daily cases would have fallen to 700, admissions to around 200 and deaths below 50.
Dr Craig Thamotheram, senior economist – macroeconomic modelling and Forecasting – at the NIESR said: “Our forecasts of pandemic variables sit well with recent evidence on the efficacy of the first dose of the vaccine in protecting against symptomatic Covid-19 for the over-70s.”