The number of people dying with coronavirus continues to fall in the Anglia region
The latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that registered deaths with Covid in the Anglia region have declined for a second week.
The number of people dying with coronavirus in the Eastern Counties peaked in the first two weeks of January with 2,860 deaths in the fortnight to 22 January.
Subsequently there were 1,166 deaths in the week to 29 January and the latest data shows that 757 deaths were registered in the following week.
The information from the ONS is taken from death certificates which mention Covid-19 and there is a lag in releasing the data to take into account the time it takes for deaths to be officially registered and processed. In means the latest weekly figure is likely to rise as more deaths are registered in the subsequent days.
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The latest ONS data records the deaths registered up to 5 February 2021 and shows that a total of 15,000 have died in the Anglia region with Covid-19 mentioned on their death certificates since the start of the pandemic.
More than one third of those people - 5,745 - have died since the start of 2021.
Data is also released by the NHS about deaths in hospital and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) records deaths in care homes.
The CQC says 173 care homes residents have died with coronavirus in the week ending 12 February. The NHS has reported 518 patients have died in hospitals in the Anglia region since 6 February.
The total number of deaths in the Anglia region since the start of the pandemic is therefore 15,691.
Nationally, the new data shows that the number of weekly registered deaths involving coronavirus in England and Wales has fallen for the first time since Christmas.
There were 7,320 deaths registered in the week ending 5 February where “novel coronavirus” was mentioned on the death certificate, the ONS said.
This is a fall of 1,113 deaths (13.1%) compared with the previous week.
The last time deaths fell was the week ending 25 December, which included one bank holiday which likely had an impact on registrations.
Dr Layla McCay, director at the NHS Confederation, welcomed the fall in deaths involving coronavirus but said they remain very high.
She said: “We hope to start seeing the impact of the vaccination programme soon, with more than 15 million doses now given, but it remains vital that there is clarity and certainty about supply, especially as NHS teams continue to face huge pressures, with more than 23,000 people still in hospital with Covid-19.
“We continue to urge the Government to be extremely cautious about easing lockdown, and to do so with these pressures at the forefront of its thinking.”
Prof Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University based in Milton Keynes, said there is “still a very long way to go”.
“The pattern of deaths is a very great deal different from what we’d have seen before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In that latest week, the number of deaths from all causes in England and Wales was 41% higher than the five-year average number for the same week.
“That’s 5,500 more deaths in a week than average for this time of year – fewer than a week before, but still a distressingly large number.”