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The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have released provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 26 February 2021.
Prof Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, The Open University, said:
“There’s more good news in the latest provisional death registration figures for England and Wales from ONS. It somehow doesn’t feel right to say that there’s good news about deaths, and I’m quite aware that the news will be far from good for the relatives and friends of the 12,614 people whose deaths were registered that week – but the numbers are falling, and falling pretty rapidly. The new bulletin takes the data up to the week 20-26 February. There were over 1,000 fewer deaths registered that week than the previous week – down almost 9% in a week. Numbers of deaths would be expected to be falling at this time of year as we move into Spring, but certainly not that quickly. ONS calculate the number of excess deaths for each week as the difference between the number that were registered this year and the average number registered in the five years 2015-2019. There were 1,066 more deaths in the latest week than the 5-year average, so that there were 9% more deaths than might be expected. But, the week before, there were 19% more deaths than the 5-year average. The number of excess deaths more than halved in a week. That’s great news. In Wales, as last week, though the number of deaths is still just slightly above the 5-year average, it is within the range of the weekly numbers of deaths in those five years taken separately.
“The number of deaths where Covid-19 is mentioned on the death certificate fell too, by more than a thousand in a week. As a percentage of the previous week, that’s a 29% fall, and that continues the fast downward trend from the week before (when the fall was 28% as a percentage of the week before that). This must surely be an effect of vaccination, in part at least. Registered deaths in England and Wales involving Covid-19 fell by nearly a third (31%) in the most recent week, compared to the week before, in people aged 80+, the age group where the biggest proportion have been vaccinated. For those aged 70-79, the decrease was smaller (27%) but still substantial. (I’d maybe expect some effect of vaccination in that age group, but not a large one yet. Most in that group would indeed have been vaccinated before the latest week in the data, ending 26 February, but usually not too long before that date – and it takes time for a vaccination to increase immunity, and there’s also a time lag between infection and death, if sadly that occurs.) The decrease in registered deaths involving Covid-19 in those aged under 70 was smaller, at 24%, but that’s still pretty large. The effect of vaccination on that age group will be considerably smaller, so far, so it’s good to see that deaths are falling pretty rapidly anyway. The pattern is similar if we look at a longer timescale, and compare deaths involving in the week ending 26 February with the numbers in week where total registered deaths involving Covid-19 were highest in the current wave, the week ending 29 January. In that period of four weeks, deaths involving Covid-19 fell by a huge 69% in those aged 80+, by 63% in the 70-79 age group, and by 54% in those aged up to 69. It’s impossible to tell from these data how much of this age difference is due to vaccination, but surely it must be having a real effect.
“The pattern of deaths is still considerably different from the pre-pandemic normal, though. In the latest week, Covid-19 was mentioned by the certifying doctor on the death certificate for 2,914 deaths in England and Wales. That’s almost a quarter (23%) of all deaths that week. And for 2,469 of those deaths, Covid-19 was the underlying cause – those are people whose death was primarily caused by Covid-19, and not people who died of something else but whose death was affected or hastened by the virus. How things have changed over the past year! In the corresponding week a year ago, no registered deaths involved Covid-19. Things aren’t going to be back to normal for some time yet, despite the rapid moves in the right direction.
“There are other major changes in the patterns of deaths, compared to how things were before the pandemic. The number of deaths that don’t involve Covid-19 remains considerably below the five-year average – about 1,800 below, in the most recent week. That’s to be expected. Lockdowns decrease the transmission of other respiratory diseases such as flu, and not just Covid-19, and can sometimes reduce deaths from other causes too, such as road deaths if people aren’t travelling so much. Also, sadly, some of the people who might otherwise have died in the latest week would have been taken earlier by Covid-19, maybe during last year. (It’s impossible to work out the balance between these possible reasons, and others, without more detailed data on causes of death, which is not yet available.) Deaths not involving Covid-19 are likely to remain somewhat below their average level for some time, so it’s quite possible that in maybe two or three weeks we might see deaths from all causes (including Covid-19) going below the five-year average.
“And the extraordinary increase in numbers of deaths in people’s own private homes continues. Deaths at home during the first pandemic wave last Spring were well above average, though to some extent this might have been because of lack of hospital capacity. But since late May last year (after the first peak), deaths at home that do not involve Covid-19 have been running steadily at between about 100 and 130 per day above the 5-year average, and this shows no sign of changing. In the most recent week there were 909 such deaths at home not involving Covid-19.
“In the regions of England, there’s another good sign, in that deaths were a little below the 5-year average in two regions. These were the South West and the North East, where deaths from all causes were about 3% below average in each case. ONS report that it’s the first time since the week ending October 23 last year that deaths in any English region have been below average. But the position does differ a lot across regions – in the West Midlands, deaths were 20% above average, and they were 17% higher than average in London. Deaths involving Covid-19 are down in the latest week (ending 26 February) compared to the previous week in every English region, and in Wales. Some of the regional falls in Covid-19 deaths in a single week are very large – about 40% down in the North East and the East of England. The falls in other regions and in Wales aren’t quite that large – mostly around a quarter in a week – but are still very considerable.”
Further information
The percentage falls, between the weeks ending 19 and 26 February, of death registrations where Covid-19 is mentioned on the death certificate in all the English regions and in Wales, in decreasing order, are: East of England 40%, North East 39%, North West 30%, South West 29%, East Midlands 27%, West Midlands 26%, South East 24%, London 24%, Wales 23%, Yorkshire and the Humber 22%.
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
Declared interests
Prof Kevin McConway: “I am a Trustee of the SMC and a member of its Advisory Committee. I am also a member of the Public Data Advisory Group, which provides expert advice to the Cabinet Office on aspects of public understanding of data during the pandemic. My quote above is in my capacity as an independent professional statistician.”