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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 15 January 2021.
Prof Sheila Bird, Formerly Programme Leader, MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, said:
“Provisional counts for COVID-mention deaths by date of occurrence are key data. COVID-mention deaths in Wave 2 had shown the glimmer of a turned-down in early December 2020 but there was then additional and contrary uncertainty due to pre-Christmas easing of restrictions, a more transmissible, ascendant variant of concern and winter. All three conspired to ignite a more treacherous third wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections, the consequences of which are now sadly apparent in the sharp rise in COVID-mention deaths post-Christmas.
“It is too early to know if the peak of COVID-mention deaths in England and Wales has been reached in the week ending 15 January 2021 or if there is worse to come in the subsequent two weeks.
Further details:
“My table shows COVID-mention deaths in England & Wales (by week of occurrence) from early September 2020 to 15 January 2021. Registration delays were perturbed during the two weeks of the festive season and so I refrained from detailed comment then.
“The perturbation has now shaken out and I can again use a) the pattern of registration-delays and b) fortnightly rates of change (currently increase) in the occurrence of COVID-mention deaths to estimate likely totals for COVID-mention deaths in the most recent weeks of occurrence.
“In England and Wales, not all deaths which occurred in the week ending 15 January 2021 have yet been registered. Taking registration delay into account and the most recent fortnightly rate of increase, we can expect that at least 7.690 to 8,100 COVID-mention deaths may have occurred in England & Wales in the week ended 15 January 2020, see Table.
“It is too early to know if the peak of COVID-mention deaths in England and Wales has been reached in the week ending 15 January 2021 or if there is worse to come in the subsequent two weeks.
Nor is it certain that the peak-week for occurrence of COVID-mention deaths in the 3rd wave will exceed the grim peak-week total of 8334 COVID-mention deaths in England & Wales in the 1st wave but we should be fearful.
“Finally, my Table documents that late-registrations continue of COVID-mention deaths which occurred during March to end May 2020 with 12 added in the past week. Mostly, these deaths will have been referred to coroner and may have been subject to inquest; or family-members asked for a review of autopsy evidence as they subsequently suspected that COVID-19 was implicated. His family’s concern accounts for the discovery that the UK’s thus-far earliest 1st COVID-mention death occurred in hospital in England on 30 January 2020, consequent upon infection post-Christmas in 2020. A sad anniversary this month for his family but I salute their perspicacity and proactivity in achieving their father’s diagnosis and also the astute puzzlement of his physicians who made the coroner-referral and thereby ensured that a post-mortem was carried out.”
Prof Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, The Open University, said:
“Today’s provisional data on death registrations in England and Wales, from ONS, takes the information available up to the second full week of the New Year, 9-15 January. The news isn’t good, but that’s not unexpected. The total number of deaths registered in that week, 18,042, is higher than the week before, but not all that much higher, 291 more deaths, which is 1.6% higher than the previous week’s figure. However, the fact that the rise is relatively small may simply be because the number of deaths registered the previous week was artificially high, because of deaths being registered late after the Christmas and New Year holidays. Results from the ONS Infection Survey, and counts of confirmed cases on coronavirus.data.gov.uk, indicate that infections in England and Wales (taken together) peaked on about 31 December or 1 January. If an infected person is, sadly, going to die of this awful disease, that would typically happen around two or three weeks after they became ill. So, on average, the people who died of Covid-19 between 9 and 15 January would have become ill when cases were still increasing at the end of last year, and that’s why deaths are up in that week compared to the week before. It’s too early for there to be any noticeable effect of vaccination on the death registrations yet. If this pattern continues, then it’s possible that death registrations might begin to level off in next week’s ONS data, but that’s very far from certain. As ONS point out, the number of deaths registered in the most recent week is the fourth highest in any week since the pandemic began. Registered deaths have not been that high since April last year. In the most recent week they were almost a third higher than the five-year average. That is a very large number of excess deaths. Deaths in every region of England, and in Wales, were above the five-year average, though by different amounts in different regions. The hardest-hit region is London, with deaths 84% above the normal level for this time of year.
“The latest week is far enough away from the Christmas and New Year holidays for it to be very likely that any effects of holidays on death registration will have worked through the system, so that this is a real increase. And the weekly numbers of deaths counted by the date the death occurred, not when it was registered, are also higher for the latest week than the week before. If the true number of deaths had already levelled off, you’d expect the count of deaths by occurrence data to have decreased compared to the previous week, because this provisional count for the most recent week will be lower than the final count will be. That’s unavoidable, and it’s because some deaths in the week 9-15 January still won’t have been registered by the cut-off date for registrations to be counted in the latest provisional data, 23 January. Because deaths by date of registration were quite strongly affected by bank holidays for around three weeks before the latest week, and because deaths by date of occurrence for the most recent week or two are always affected by late registrations, it’s really quite hard to say whether the rate at which deaths are increasing is changing. I can’t see any signs of real levelling off yet – but maybe (or maybe not) there will be some signs next week.
“It’s also very clear indeed that the increase is because more people were dying from Covid-19. The number of deaths registered in the latest week where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate was 7,245, almost a third higher than the week before, and was higher than it has been throughout the pandemic except for two weeks last April. For the great majority of those deaths, 90% of them, Covid-19 was recorded as the underlying cause of the person’s death. (For the other 10%, the certifying doctor would have considered that Covid-19 contributed to the person’s death, but was not a direct cause.)
“So is there any good news in this? Well, the number of deaths that did not involve Covid-19 is running well below the five-year average. That’s not really surprising. Normally, quite a lot of the deaths at this time of year would be caused by influenza or other respiratory viruses, which are transmitted in similar ways to the virus that causes Covid-19, so the current lockdowns and restrictions will reduce deaths from those infections too. But it’s still welcome.
“I do hope for better data on deaths next week. The numbers may well still be increasing next week, but there could at least be some signs that they aren’t increasing so fast. And even when they level off or start to decrease, they will still be very high. Vaccination will help, but there’s still a very long way to go.”
Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, Chair, Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, University of Cambridge, said:
“There will be a lot of attention given to deaths with Covid reaching 100,000, but this is based on the figures released each day, which only include people who both had a positive test and then died within 28 days.
“The more accurate ONS data show that over 100,000 people in the UK had already died with Covid on their death certificate by January 7th, nearly 3 weeks ago. This rose to 108,000 by January 15th, and the total now will be nearly 120,000.
“Around 90% of these had Covid as the immediate cause of death, and so perhaps we can say that around 100,000 people in the UK have now died because of Covid. An awful total.”
https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/deathsregisteredinenglandandwalesprovisionalweekending15january2020
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
Declared interests
Prof Sheila Bird: “SMB is a former programme leader at MRC Biostatistics Unit.”
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.”
Prof David Spiegelhalter: “DJS is a paid non-executive director of the UK Statistics Authority, that oversees the work of the ONS.”