UPDATE: After today's @ONS data, the latest estimate for the number of excess deaths in the UK linked to coronavirus is
115,300
Note that 50,000 of these have happened in the second wave, so don't let anyone say death numbers are normal
1/
@ONS The one thing that is true is that in the second wave, excess deaths (compared with the 5 year average) are lower than the count of deaths wihtin 28 days of a positive test and coronavirus mentions on death certificates
1) Some would have died anyway eg from flu in a normal year. See @d_spiegel
2) Now we're better at preventing flu with social distancing the 5 year average is wrong, so excess deaths is an underestimate @statsgeekclare
3/
@ONS@d_spiegel@statsgeekclare These are normal debates about something which isn't known - the counterfactual (what would have happened without Covid). It will take time to have a clear view on this
The invalid interpretation is that the excess deaths are not much to worry about
4/
Excess was higher in first wave because testing for the virus was so poor.
It's lower in the second wave because there have been fewer non-Covid-19 deaths than usual - likely to be due to social distancing limiting other respiratory illnesses
UPDATE: Following today's @ONS data for England and Wales, my estimate of the number of UK excess deaths linked to coronavirus since mid March 2020 has surpassed a new grim milestone of
106,300
Of these, 94,745 have been recorded officially, the remainder are estimates
1/
@ONS There is now strong evidence that the number of excess deaths accelerated as the second wave became more intense towards the end of December - estimates of the daily totals rise significantly
But are still well below the spring peak
2/
@ONS It no longer appears true that excess deaths in the second wave are lower than the daily death totals
Why? My hunch is that as waves intensify, hospitals find it harder to save those who would have survived when pressures lighter
@FinancialTimes In the most recent week, there were nearly 1.8m first jabs given and it's been speeding up (apart from the weekend)
@FinancialTimes This puts the UK fourth in the world at the end of last week with a vaccination rate twice the best placed other European county, Denmark
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/
What to make of 1,325 deaths within 28 days of a postive Covid test today
A record on this measure
1) It's bad
2) With 40% not in hospitals, suggests a rising crisis in people's homes and care homes again - that's really bad...
But
3) It does need to be put in the context of excess deaths which are running at about 300 a day up to Christmas
4) And since the daily figure was a severe underestimate of the spring peak, this is not a record yet. Excess deaths peaked at about 2,000 a day in April
Don't let the more modest excess deaths so far fool anyone into thinking this is mild or like a bad flu year
Since October there have been 19,000 excess deaths in England and Wales. In the last big flu season (2017-18), there were 7,762 in the same period.