Third of Covid deaths involve other causes

ALMOST one third of recently registered Covid deaths in England and Wales are of people who died primarily from other causes, latest figures show.

Weekly death data from the Office for National Statistics shows that for nearly 33 per cent of people included in the overall coronavirus death figures, Covid was not an underlying cause of death.

The number of people who are not principally dying from the virus, yet who are still being included in the official figures, has been creeping up steadily as the pandemic has declined.

It was running at around 10 per cent, but had risen to nearly one quarter by mid-april and is continuing to increase.

In the latest data, published yesterday, which records death registrations in the week ending April 23, some 260 deaths were recorded in England and Wales from Covid but only 67.7 per cent (176) had the virus as an underlying cause.

Coronavirus deaths in England and Wales now make up just 2.6 per cent of all deaths, the lowest it has been since September. At the height of the second wave, 45.7 per cent of all registered deaths involved coronavirus. England and Wales have been trending well below the five-year average death rate for the past seven weeks as data shows 5.3 per cent fewer deaths recorded overall compared to the expected figure – and 497 fewer deaths than the previous week.

Prof Kevin Mcconway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University, said: “It’s pretty well all good news. Registered numbers of deaths from all causes for the most recent week are almost 500 down compared to the week before. The most impressive declines were in deaths involving Covid-19.”

The number of registered deaths has fallen by nearly two thirds in four weeks and is 97 per cent lower than during the January peak.