Coronavirus: 1% of all deaths involved Covid-19 in second week of September

Just one per cent of all deaths in England and Wales involved coronavirus in the second week of September. Credit: PA

Just one per cent of all deaths in England and Wales involved coronavirus in the second week of September.

It is among the lowest number of deaths involving Covid-19 since mid-March, figures from the Office for National Statistics show.

However, deaths from all causes were 5.4% higher than average in the week ending September 11.

This could be due to the August Bank Holiday weekend which may have caused a delay in the reporting of deaths.

In total, there were 9,811 deaths in the week ending September 11 - 98 of those deaths involved Covid-19 in England and Wales.

Graph showing number of deaths in England and Wales between December 2019 to September 11, 2020. Credit: Office for National Statistics

What does the latest data show us?

  • Across the year, 55% of all deaths involving coronavirus were males

  • The North West had the latest number of deaths in week ending September 11 (30 deaths) and highest proportion of deaths involving Covid-19

  • Between the first and second week of September, the number of deaths involving Covid-19 increased in hospitals and care homes (by 13 deaths and 10 deaths respectively) and decreased or remained similar in all other settings.

  • Deaths in private homes and care homes were above the five-year average in the second week of September

  • The number of deaths involving coronavirus increased across five of the nine English region, with the North West the only region to have lower overall deaths than the five-year average.

Despite the fall in coronavirus-linked deaths across England and Wales, there are fears that the increased number of cases being seen across the UK could soon lead to a rise in hospitalisations and deaths.

Hospitalisations and deaths tend to lag a few weeks behind a rise in cases.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Sir Patrick Vallance, Government Chief Scientific Adviser said: “We expect to see increase in hospitalisations and unfortunately those increase in hospitalisations will lead to an increase in deaths.”

Sir Patrick Vallance and chief medical officer Chris Whitty speaking at the Downing Street briefing Credit: left

He warned if action was not taken to slow the spread of Covid-19, which is estimated to be doubling every seven to eight days, there could be as many as 50,000 cases per day by late October and around “200 plus deaths per day” by by mid-November.

He added: “Cases are increasing, hospitalisations are following. Deaths unfortunately will follow that, and there is the potential for this to move very fast.”