Britain posts 12 more Covid-19 deaths in preliminary toll

Britain today posted 12 more Covid-19 deaths in the preliminary toll as separate figures revealed the number of people dying each week has dropped to another low.

Department of Health chiefs have yet to confirm the final daily figure, which is often much higher because it takes into account lab-confirmed fatalities in all settings. The early count — which only includes a fraction of the Covid-19 deaths in England — is calculated by adding up updates declared by each of the home nations.

NHS England today posted 12 deaths in hospitals across the country. No fatalities were recorded in any setting in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland again.

It comes as data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today revealed only 192 people died of confirmed or suspected coronavirus in England or Wales in the week ending July 17.

It is the seventeenth week in a row the number of confirmed or suspected Covid-19 deaths has fallen and it means up to five times as many people are now dying of flu or pneumonia. 

But fatalities are rising in the South East and South West, according to the figures. Both regions suffered a spike in deaths of 57 and 11 per cent in a week, respectively. 

Deaths from all causes are below average for the fifth week in a row, which may be because fewer people are now dying of heart disease and dementia because they were already killed by the coronavirus.

In total some 51,366 people have had Covid-19 written on their death certificate during the pandemic in England and Wales, with the majority of deaths recorded in March and April. The toll is higher than the Government tally of 45,759 which only includes victims who died after testing positive for the coronavirus. 

Department of Health figures yesterday showed almost 113,500 tests were carried out or posted the day before. The number includes antibody tests for frontline NHS and care workers.

But bosses again refused to say how many people were tested, meaning the exact number of Brits who have been swabbed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been a mystery for a month — since May 22.

Health chiefs reported 685 more cases of Covid-19. Government statistics show the official size of the UK’s outbreak now stands at 300,111 cases, less than 12 weeks after they tipped 200,000.

But the actual size of the outbreak, which began to spiral out of control in March, is estimated to be in the millions, based on antibody testing data.

It means the rolling average of daily cases stands at 678 — 8 per cent higher than the 628 average cases figure recorded last Monday.

The daily death data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours — it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities.

The data does not always match updates provided by the home nations. Department of Health officials work off a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland as well as Northern Ireland are always out of sync.

And the count announced by NHS England every afternoon — which only takes into account deaths in hospitals — does not match up with the DH figures because they work off a different recording system.

For instance, some deaths announced by NHS England bosses will have already been counted by the Department of Health, which records fatalities ‘as soon as they are available’. 

More than 1,000 infected Brits died each day during the darkest days of the crisis in mid-April but the number of victims had been dropping by around 20 to 30 per cent week-on-week since the start of May.

Sixty-four Britons are dying with Covid-19 each day, on average. By contrast, the rate last Sunday was 69 and has barely changed in the past seven days. 

It comes as ONS figures today revealed there were a total of 295 Covid-19 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week to July 17. Of these, 192 actually occurred that week, while others happened in the weeks before.

‘Registered deaths’ relate to when they are recorded as opposed to when they occurred, and are the lowest since the week ending March 20, when 103 were registered.

They have dropped by almost a fifth (19.4 per cent) in one week and for the 17th consecutive week.

ONS revealed Covid-19 accounted for just 3.3 per cent of the all deaths over England and Wales registered that week, which compares to the 16.4 per cent caused by the flu or pneumonia.  

At the height of the pandemic, in the week ending April 17, 8,758 Covid-19 deaths were registered. 

But actual death occurrences are the lowest since the week ending March 13 — 10 days before Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced lockdown — confirming the virus is petering out.

The 192 that occurred is down from 323 in the previous week, and 422 the week before that. 

But while today’s data shows England is recovering from the Covid-19 crisis, two of the nine regions have shown a slight uptick in deaths from the disease. 

In the South East, Covid-19 deaths rose by 57 per cent — from seven in Week 28 to 11 in Week 29. For the South West, the figures rose from 62 to 69. 

All nine regions had fewer overall deaths than the five-year average, meaning no ‘excess deaths’ are being recorded — those which are above what is expected for this time of year.

Excess deaths shot up by thousands during the pandemic, and the fact they have fizzled out is a positive sign the darkest days of the crisis are over. 

For much of the worst days of the outbreak Covid-19 deaths far outstripped those linked to flu or pneumonia, dementia, heart disease or other common causes of death. 

But the gap has narrowed gradually and those illnesses have once again become more common than the coronavirus.  

The provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales increased in Week 28 is three per cent below the five-year average — the fifth consecutive week this pattern has been observed.

There were 270 fewer deaths than the five-year average in the week ending July 17. 

This can be explained by the fact Covid-19 has had a larger impact on those most vulnerable, for example, those who already suffer from a medical condition and those at older ages.

Experts say some of these people who would have likely died over the duration of the year have already died because of Covid-19. 

Flu and pneumonia deaths have also been lower than average during Britain’s epidemic, likely because of the measures introduced to curb the spread of Covid-19, meaning other infections were also strangled.   

The number of deaths in care homes and hospitals in the week to July 17 was also below the five-year average (140 and 862 deaths lower respectively).

However, the number of deaths in private homes was 766 higher than the five-year average. 

There have been excess deaths in private homes every week of this year, and rates are declining much slower than in other settings. 

It comes amid fears Britain’s coronavirus outbreak may be growing, after several different sets of data suggested cases are rising again. 

The rolling daily average number of new cases was 15 per cent higher yesterday than it was three weeks ago, Department of Health statistics showed.

Health bosses yesterday revealed another 685 people have tested positive for the life-threatening virus, meaning the official size of the outbreak now sits at over 300,000 cases.

The seven-day rolling average of new cases is now 678 — higher than the 590 recorded on July 6 and the highest since July 4 (711). 

Between July 6 and July 16, the daily average was always below 600 except for one day, giving hope cases were on a downward trend. But they have been above 600 for 11 days in a row now.