Thread by @ChrisGiles_

UPDATE: A grim set of official figures today on deaths means my estimate of the number of people in the UK who have died since mid March linked to coronavirus is

97,700

After a recent acceleration, UK is on course to hit 100,000 by Saturday

1/

Patterns of bank holidays around the end of the year add to uncertainty, but I have been cautious and there has been a recent
inflection point in excess deaths in the data across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Excess deaths rose from mid Dec

2/

Excess deaths had been lower than deaths in hospitals for the whole of the second wave, but in the past two weeks that has no longer been the case.

It suggests fewer people dying of Covid-19 were particularly vulnerable and would have probably died anyway.

3/

For the year as a whole, as @NickStripe_ONS showed last week, deaths have been extremely high on any measure

4/

https://twitter.com/NickStripe_ONS/status/1346860617735532544

@NickStripe_ONS I kept the parameters of the updating model as constant as possible, but the evidence has overwhelmed them even though there are bank holiday issues to resolve.

Let's hope vaccinations soon put a dent into the numbers of very elderly people who are dying

5/

@NickStripe_ONS The regional patterns of excess deaths in the latest data fit with the regional pattern of infection, so this is a very difficult period we again entering

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

ENDS