A number of residents have contacted councillors in relation to the excess deaths reported by various media organisations. It should be noted that some of the reports are not the most up-to-date links reported.
Rachel Flowers our director of Public Health makes the following important points in this regards.
I should highlight that the report detailed by the ONS in the article one resident raised is not the most up-to-date report on excess deaths in England and I am including a link to the ONS report for the week ending 13th January 2023 (Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)).
However, both ONS reports describing excess deaths are good ways to measure the impact that Covid-19 has had to date on mortality. It’s particularly useful because the causes of deaths during the first few years of the pandemic may not always have been accurately recorded and reported, indeed we are still learning about the virus and it is possible that general practitioners may mis-diagnose some illnesses as Covid-19 or miss some Covid- 19 cases entirely. However the total number of deaths is not affected by these inaccuracies.
Of equal importance, measuring excess deaths allows us to understand the wider impacts of Covid-19 more fully, including on those people who have died from healthcare being harder to access (such as surgical procedures and life-saving treatments being rescheduled or cancelled) or those who put off going to A&E with symptoms of a heart attack.
The ONS report you have referred to states that the total number of deaths for the week ending 28th October 2022 in England and Wales was 12.5% above the average. The comparison was the average number of deaths occurring on that week during 2016-19 and 2021 (excluding 2020 and the peak of the pandemic). For the week ending 28th October 2022, 5.6% of all deaths involved COVID-19, and half of all excess deaths involved COVID-19.
Information on excess deaths is consistently being reviewed and tracked over time so that they can inform changes in public policy and the provision of health services. The ONS reports provide a national picture. Locally, we can use tools such as the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities excess mortality tool to try and better understand the populations in which there is excess mortality (Excess mortality in England and English regions - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)).
However, until the pandemic is fully over, and it is still too soon to predict when this will be, it is unlikely we will have a complete understanding of the impact
