Latest ONS deaths data (to week ending 28 May) has been released.
312 fewer deaths were recorded in-week compared to the 2015-19 year average. That’s 3% lower.
Year to date there have been 259,829 deaths recorded, which is 10% higher than the 2015-19 average.
There are 95 deaths where COVID was mentioned on the death certificate this week. 74% of the deaths with COVID mentioned had it listed as as underlying cause.
As with last week, when @john_actuary provided this update (thanks John!) we have another “clean” week without bank holiday distortions this year or the 2015-19 average. And, like last week, 2021 death counts are 3% below the 2015-19 average.
The best way to compare 2020/21 to earlier years is to examine age-standardised death rates.
Comparing death counts can be distorted slightly by ageing and growth of the population.
The CMI report weekly using this method. Their Mortality Monitor is due out later today.
The CMI report I referred to earlier has been published.
This is a perfectly reasonable question. #VaccinesWork and the UK vaccination effort has been incredible, so why do so many people, including me, feel that unlocking on June 21 is just too much of a risk right now? 🧵 (TLDR: Delta/India variant, cases 📈)
With the delta variant now prevalent in the UK, cases are rising exponentially, doubling around every 9 days. I like the way @BristOliver presents these... follow the line to see where the current trajectory takes us. 2/12
As @theJeremyVine notes, vaccines have dramatically reduced the proportion of cases that turn into hospital admissions and deaths. Whilst I’m mindful of concerns around long covid, it’s these more immediate outcomes that underlie the roadmap. I’ll focus on those today. 3/12
Do we need to see people “dropping dead in the street” to be in a pandemic? Absolutely not!
A projection of the impact of an *unmitigated* spread of the virus was a UK death toll of around half a million deaths. That’s *roughly* the same number as die each year normally.
The age distribution of COVID-19 deaths is *roughly* the same as the ordinary distribution of deaths which allows us to do a simple rule of thumb. If we had completely let things get out of control then we would each have seen one COVID death for each death we normally see.
@hughosmond@COVID19actuary Yes, non-COVID deaths have been below expected levels since late May. The shortfall is increasing as we approach the usual winter peak. This suggests that a fair number of those who died in April / May would have been unlikely to survive this winter. We can estimate how many...
@hughosmond@COVID19actuary CMI reported 63,500 excess deaths to week 24 (mid June). This fell through summer and had risen again during the second wave, reaching 70,300 excess deaths to 11 December.
So excess deaths increased by 6,800 despite 23,600 additional COVID deaths. A “shortfall” of 16,800 deaths.
@hughosmond@COVID19actuary This suggests that around one quarter of those who died during the initial peak might have died by now of other causes. That is far fewer than some were suggesting at the time (there was talk of it being a majority, which actuaries were quick to challenge).
The latest @ICNARC intensive care weekly report has been published. A short thread to summarise, including a link to the full report.
The report covers critical care admissions to 20 November and compares the second wave (1 Sep onwards) to the first. 1/9
The report now covers 4,869 patients from 1 September. Critical care outcomes are reported for 3,293 of these patients.
Most second wave admissions in the North of England and the Midlands. Interesting to compare and contrast locations with first wave. 2/9
Figure 13 compare all pneumonia admissions in recent years to 2020 (with this years admissions split between COVID and other). It’s clear that relevant admissions this year (orange plus blue lines) are many times higher than normal in both the first and second waves. 3/9
The latest @ICNARC intensive care weekly report has been published. A short thread to summarise, including a link to the full report. The report covers critical care admissions to 15 October and compares the second wave (1 Sep onwards) to the first. 1/10
The report now covers 1,233 patients from 1 September. Of these, 643 have outcomes reported and 590 are still receiving critical care.
Most admissions in the North of England and the Midlands. However, allowing for size of local population N. Ireland and London look bad. 2/10
Table 1 summarises patient characteristics, showing how these compare with the first wave.
As before, seven out of ten ICU admissions are males, with most aged 50-80. 3/10