The number of excess deaths in England and Wales spiked in the second week in January, reaching the highest level since the second wave of COVID-19 deaths, the latest data show.
This is the highest number of weekly excess deaths since the week ending Feb. 12, 2021, when the UK was emerging from the Alpha wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On that occasion, deaths involving COVID-19 accounted for 37 percent of all those registered.
But in the most recent week, the disease accounted for just 5 percent of the total, meaning other factors are driving the high level of mortality.
The number of deaths in private homes were almost a third (31.5 percent) up from the five-year average while the number of deaths in hospitals, care homes, and other settings were 11.1 percent, 27.6 percent, and 12 percent above average, respectively.
Across the UK, 19,916 deaths were registered during the week ending Jan. 13, around 20.4 percent above the five-year average (3,377 excess deaths), the ONS said.
Deaths Remain Above Average for Months
According to an earlier analysis of official figures by The Times of London and the BBC, more than 650,000 deaths were registered in the UK in 2022, with the highest excess deaths in the last 50 years apart from the pandemic years.This winter has seen a sharp spike in the figures, with deaths 21 percent and 20 percent above average in the last two weeks of December, followed by 14 percent and 20 percent in the first two weeks of January.
Health experts have suggested a number of factors could be behind the increase, with COVID-19 playing only a minor part.
The surge in flu cases in the run-up to Christmas is likely to have had an impact.
The latest data shows deaths involving flu and pneumonia accounted for nearly a quarter (24 percent) of all of those registered in England and Wales in the first two weeks of the year.
Deaths—where flu and pneumonia were recorded as the underlying cause of death—accounted for 9 percent of registrations in the week to Jan. 6 and 8 percent in the latest week—levels not seen since before the pandemic.
Veena Raleigh, senior fellow at health charity The King’s Fund, said other factors driving excess deaths include “unmet healthcare needs during the pandemic” and “unprecedented pressures on NHS services.”
Halting and reversing the trend in extra deaths needs these factors to be “addressed urgently,” she added, with vaccination programmes “a priority as COVID-19 continues its relentless march, along with flu and pneumonia in recent weeks.”
Labour’s shadow public health minister Andrew Gwynne questioned Health Secretary Steven Barclay in parliament on Tuesday.
“There were 50,000 more deaths than we would have otherwise expected in 2022. Excluding the pandemic, that is the worst figure since 1951," Gwynne said, citing excess death figures from across the UK.
“The Health Secretary ... says he doesn’t accept those figures, but as many as 500 people are dying every week waiting for essential care and we’re still getting the same old Tory denial and buck-passing," Gwynne added.
“So, will the minister in answering finally take some responsibility, accept the ONS excess death figure, and recognise the damage that she and her government are doing to our NHS?”
In response, Health minister Maria Caulfield cited the emergency department waiting time in Wales, and said the UK was ranked “mid-table in Europe for mortality figures, comparable with Italy,” by the British Medical Journal.
“In fact, Germany has got higher excess deaths at 15.6 percent, Finland at 20.5 percent, and Poland at 13.3 percent. … Wales in December had the highest number of red calls ever and only 39.5 percent received a response in eight minutes, the lowest on record,” she said, adding Gwynne needs to recognize that there are “clinical reasons for excess deaths, not political ones.”
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