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The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have published their latest update of registered deaths in the UK, up to week ending 10th July 2020.
Dr Daniel Lawson, Lecturer in Statistical Science, School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, said:
“Deaths by COVID-19 and deaths from all causes are both down compared to the 5-year average, and have stayed down for the last month. This is very good news and shows that we have control over the outbreak as few COVID-19 deaths now go undetected.
“Interpreting the fact that fewer people are dying – of any cause – is hard. Lockdown clearly leads to fewer deaths in the short term – other European countries passed this milestone long ago. With so much change to our lives, risks taken in other categories – such as road deaths and other forms of infection – are reduced. There is evidence that we are building up a backlog of future deaths due to reduced routine healthcare for other diseases including cancer (https://www.nature.com/articles/s43018-020-0074-y).
“There are still excess deaths in some places, for example in people’s own home; but deaths in care homes appear to be under control. All-cause mortality is the best measure of whether the system is coping, and currently it is.”
Prof Carl Heneghan, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, and Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford, said:
“The last four weeks have seen fewer deaths than the five-year average.
“This week saw 560 fewer deaths than the five-year average, and the last four weeks, 986 fewer deaths have occurred compared to the five-year average. (36,148 deaths in the previous four weeks have been registered compared to the five year average of 37,134).
“This significant trend in reducing deaths compared to the average is likely due to deaths occurring a few months earlier in the frail and the elderly from COVID.
“For the next seven weeks (throughout summer) the five year average of registered deaths remains low at about 9,000 per week. It will be essential to observe over these weeks whether this trend continues.”
Prof Sheila Bird, formerly Programme Leader, MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, said:
“The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has instituted a review of how COVID-mention deaths are counted in England and Wales. Matt Hancock’s immediate concern was Public Health England’s methodology. There is, however, a more fundamental issue that needs to be addressed by the Ministerial review. That issue is the late registration of coroner-referred COVID-mention deaths in England and Wales. Today’s report from Office for National Statistics (ONS) discloses that 18 COVID-mention deaths in England and Wales which occurred during 31 March to 16 May (the 18th) were first registered in the week of 11 to 18 July and so had a minimum registration-delay of 8 weeks (16 May to 11 July) and a maximum delay of more than 15 weeks (31 March).
“Registration delays of 8 to 15 weeks for COVID-mention deaths are the beam in ministerial eyes as the Coronavirus Act 2020 failed to close the registration-gap that yawns mendaciously during a pandemic because, with the best will in the world, none of us in England and Wales can count the uncounted coroner-referred COVID-mention deaths until the coroner has concluded his or her investigation which can take weeks or months even if the decision is not to proceed to inquest. At least some inquests into coroner-referred deaths of healthcare workers or social care workers should be expedited so that any lesson to be learned that could prevent fatalities in a second wave of COVID-19 disease are shared in time for prevention of winter deaths.”
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
Declared interests
Prof Sheila Bird: “Since 2010, the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) has called for legislation to end the late registration of deaths in England and Wales. SMB leads for RSS on the need for legislation, as in Scotland, which ensures that fact-of-death is registered within 8 days of death having been ascertained.”
None others received.