May 5, 2020

expert reaction to latest figures on deaths in hospitals in England involving COVID-19

NHS England have released the latest figure for reported deaths in hospitals in England – an additional 366 deaths since yesterday, bringing the total to 21,750.

Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Jason Oke, Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, said:

“Today’s update on NHS England’s deaths: COVID-19: Death Data in England – Update 5th May https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-5th-may/

“Today’s reported figure is 366 deaths in hospitals in England.  These deaths are distributed back to the 19th of March.

“For comparison: the reported deaths in hospitals in England on the same weekday 1, 2 and 3 weeks ago were:

28th of April: 546 deaths.

21st April: 778 deaths

14th April: 744 deaths

“And we have added the data by setting for date of death; see: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-5th-may/.”

Prof David Leon, Professor of Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:

“Trends in the number of deaths in hospitals in England where the deceased had tested positive for the Covid virus provides an important indication of the progress of the epidemic even though it is an incomplete count of total deaths due to Covid.  The data released today (5 April) allows us to see trends by day according to when the deaths occurred.  This is a far more informative and accurate way to look at real trends than by date of reporting which continues to be the preferred mode of presentation at the daily Downing Street press conferences.

“The trends in Covid deaths in hospital in England by date of death continue to be encouraging.  Overall between the peak on April 8 and April 30 (the latest date for which the final numbers are likely to be close to the final count) deaths fell from 801 to 277 – a decline of almost two-thirds.  The rate of decline has been steepest in London, where over the same period deaths from a peak of 199 on April 8 to 35 on April 30 – a decline of over 80%.

“Much attention has rightly been given to death rates among the elderly and those in care-homes.  Today’s figures of Covid deaths in hospitals in England for those aged 80+ years show a decline from a peak of 418 on April 8 to 165 on April 30 – a decline of 60%, which is slightly small than the two-thirds decline for the total population.

“Today has also seen the publication of the weekly update of deaths from the ONS covering England and Wales.  This counts the Covid deaths in a different way to those notified to NHS England.  ONS counts a death as Covid if the virus was mentioned on the medical death certificate – whether or not the person had been tested.  This has the advantage of capturing deaths occurring in private homes, care homes and hospitals in the same way.

“Because of the inevitable delay in the formal process of registering a death, the ONS Figures are always 11 days behind.  From today’s release it is possible to see trends up to 24 April.  While most of the tables published are by date of reporting, a few are by the more informative day of occurrence / death.  This confirms that the overall peak of Covid deaths for England and Wales occurred in the week ending in April 10 – consistent with the peak in hospital deaths in England on April 8.

“Most importantly this ONS report shows that there was a DECLINE in deaths from Covid-19 in hospitals, care homes and private homes that OCCURRED between the week ending on April 17 and the week ending on April 24.  For care homes the Covid deaths declined from 2443 in week ending April 17 to 2282 in week ending on April 24.

“This is quite contrary to the media emphasis so far today that stated that there was an INCREASE in deaths from all causes between these two weeks for care homes.  This is because the main commentary in the ONS report stated: “The number of deaths in care homes (from all causes) for Week 17 was 7,911, which is 595 higher than Week 16.”  What is NOT widely understood is that these numbers relate to week of reporting and not week of occurrence.

“The numbers of deaths from Covid and other causes occurring in care homes and in private homes remains far greater than we would expect based on previous years.  The reasons for this require particular scrutiny.  However, the uncritical emphasis that continues to be placed on looking at trends by date of reporting rather than date of occurrence of death continues to give a false and misleading impression of what is really happening.  While the UK has undoubtedly done very badly compared to many other countries, the positive trends in deaths in all settings that we are now seeing are important to communicate better.”

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/

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www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

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