COVID-19: U.K. situationCoronavirus: How the Current Number of People Dying in the U.K. Compares to the Past Decade
In England and Wales, the very latest data has just been published on the number of all deaths registered in the week ending 13 March – which was 11,019 people. This was some 186 fewer than in that same week over the course of the last five years. It’s worth looking in detail at the period just before the pandemic reached the U.K. to understand what huge variations in mortality occurred recently before anyone died due to COVID-19. The Oxford estimates suggests that of those actually infected, as compared to those known to be infected following testing, the actual global mortality rate may be as low as 0.2 percent – or less. This is what we should hope for – while preparing for worse.
The speed of the global spread of coronavirus is staggering.
On 5 March, Chris Whitty, the UK’s chief medical adviser, announced the death, in Berkshire, of the first U.K. patient to have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease associated with the new coronavirus. That patient had contracted the virus within the U.K.
Exactly eight weeks earlier, on 9 January, in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the first such death worldwide had occurred. At the time it was reported that there was no evidence the virus could spread between humans. That was quickly proved wrong. The virus spread around the world and the rise in deaths is now slowest in those countries it reached first.
In England and Wales, the very latest data has just been published on the number of all deaths registered in the week ending 13 March – which was 11,019 people. This was some 186 fewer than in that same week over the course of the last five years.
It’s worth looking in detail at the period just before the pandemic reached the U.K. to understand what huge variations in mortality occurred recently before anyone died due to COVID-19. That’s because it’s useful to know how bad the situation already was in late January, February and early March before the crisis fully hit as it is expected to – and how often the numbers dying at this time of year have risen above what the NHS and adult social services have (and have not) been able to cope with in very recent years.
Fewer Deaths Than Average
In the 56 days from 11 January to 6 March, the total number of people who died in England and Wales was recorded as being 90,940, only one of whom was known to have tested positive for COVID-19. Others who died may possibly have had the disease, but not been tested for it. However, it’s unlikely that the virus was widespread in England and Wales in the first few months of 2020. That’s because the 90,940 deaths was 5,023 people lower than the average in the same eight-week period over the previous five years, which was 95,963.
One obvious reason why fewer people died in early 2020 was because the previous five years had been extraordinarily bad, as a comparison of the absolute numbers of deaths in these same 56 days in each of the last 11 years shows.
