How does #COVID19 compare with flu as a cause of death?
While there are limitations in comparing mortality from both diseases, our latest article explores trends in mortality over the pandemic and how this compares with pre #coronavirus years ➡️ ow.ly/q2mx50Jffht
There were more deaths involving flu and pneumonia than #COVID19 between March 2020 and April 2022.
However, COVID-19 was identified as the underlying cause of death in more than four times as many deaths as flu and pneumonia over the same period.
The proportion of deaths involving #COVID19 where the disease was also the underlying cause of death has fallen from 90% in spring 2020 and early 2021, to 62% in the week ending 1 April 2022.
This is still much higher compared with flu and pneumonia (20% in the same week).
The average age of death for those with #COVID19 as an underlying cause has been lower than for those due to flu and pneumonia throughout the pandemic.
Deaths due to flu and pneumonia have fallen to historic lows during #COVID19.
While deaths due to COVID-19 in the latest winter were still double that of those due to flu and pneumonia, they were more in line with those seen due to flu and pneumonia in pre-pandemic years.
1 in 12 (7.9%) deaths due to #COVID19 were among those aged below 60 years, compared with 1 in 20 (5.0%) deaths due to flu and pneumonia ➡️ ow.ly/q2mx50Jffht
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We've led the development of a new method for estimating the number of excess deaths across UK countries.
Julie Stanborough talks us through the data released today and how this new method will give us a better understanding in this complex area ➡️ ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
Expected number of deaths used to calculate excess mortality is now estimated from age-specific mortality rates rather than death counts, so changes in population size and age structure are taken into account. Our new method also accounts for trends in population mortality rates.
In 2023, the new method estimates 10,994 excess deaths in the UK, which is 20,448 fewer than the current method.
We've published a new article exploring the disability, health status, ethnic group, religion and employment of people of different sexual orientations (aged 16 years and over) in England and Wales using #Census2021 data.
#Census2021 included a voluntary question about sexual orientation of usual residents aged 16 and over:
▪️ 89.4% said they were straight or heterosexual
▪️ 3.2% identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or another sexual orientation (LGB+)
▪️ 7.5% did not respond to the question
People who identified as LGB+ were younger on average, with a far higher proportion aged between 16 and 34 years (57.9%) than in the overall population of England and Wales (29.6%).
However, different LGB+ sexual orientation groups had markedly different age distributions.