Wednesday, 2 September, 2020
Local
Deaths from Covid-19 (coronavirus): how are they counted and what do they show?
This explainer from The King's Fund was originally published on 13 May and it was updated on 19 August 2020 to reflect recent data and changes in the method used for reporting daily Covid-19 deaths on GOV.UK.
This report considers Covid-19 and overall deaths between early March and 7 August 2020, the period during which most Covid-19 deaths have occurred (at the time of writing). The data relates to England, England and Wales or the UK depending on data availability and relevance to the context.
Some key messages from the explainer include:
- In about five months, Covid-19 deaths in England and Wales in 2020 have already exceeded the annual number of deaths from stroke or lung cancer in 2019. In addition to its direct impact on overall mortality, Covid-19 may have caused an increase in deaths from other serious conditions such as heart disease and stroke because of fewer people receiving health care for non-Covid conditions.
- Between early March and 7 August, there were about 26,500 excess deaths in care homes and 23,500 excess deaths at home compared with the 2015–19 average. The data suggest that some non-Covid-related deaths that would normally have occurred in hospitals have occurred elsewhere.
- Some population groups have a higher risk of dying from Covid-19 than others. Mortality rates are affected by:
- age: mortality rates rise sharply with age
- gender: mortality rates are higher among men than women
- co-morbidities: mortality rates are significantly higher among people with pre-existing conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes
- deprivation: between 1 March and 30 June 2020 the mortality rate from Covid-19 was 120 per cent higher in the most deprived compared with the least deprived decile of areas.
- ethnicity: people from some ethnic minority groups2 have a significantly higher risk of being diagnosed with Covid-19, developing serious complications and dying from it. Mortality among Black groups is almost double that of the white group; in males from Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian groups it is about 1.5 times higher
- occupation: mortality rates from Covid-19 are higher among people working in some public-facing occupations, such as nurses, social care workers, security guards, transport workers and sales and retail assistants
- obesity: excess weight is associated with an increased risk of a positive test for Covid-19, hospitalisation, severe disease and death.
- The overall age-standardised mortality rate for England from 1 January to 31 July 2020 was the highest since 2009
Read the full report on The King's Fund website.
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