UK’s Coronavirus Death Approaches 14,000

Another 861 people have died in hospitals after contracting coronavirus, taking the UK death toll to 13,729, the Department of Health (DoH) has confirmed.

Today’s jump in deaths is another huge daily increase, following a rise of 761 yesterday and 778 on Tuesday.

The toll was updated after England recorded another 740 deaths. Scotland reported 80 deaths, while 32 were recorded in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland.

The combined daily increase from the four nations comes to 870, which is 9 higher than the number – 861 – later released by the DoH this afternoon.

There is also a difference in the DoH’s death toll – 13,729 – and the combined figure from England (12,396), Scotland (779), Wales (495), and Northern Ireland (158), which is 99 higher at 13,828. The government has said this difference is because each devolved authority often makes amendments to their own data after reporting deaths to the DoH each day.

For our Coronavirus live blog click here. It is important to note that all of these deaths occurred in hospitals across the UK. They do not take into account the people dying at home, in care facilities, hospices, or other locations outside of hospitals.

The latest figures were released after the Office for National Statistics revealed the coronavirus death rate was twice as high for men than for women in England and Wales in March.

Covid-19 was the underlying cause of death in 3,372 deaths in March, which is the equivalent of 69 per 100,000 people. It accounted for 7% of all deaths in England and Wales that month – 9% of all deaths for males and 6% for females.

The mortality rate for men who died due to coronavirus was 97.5 deaths per 100,000 population, while for women it was 46.6 deaths per 100,000, the ONS said. Including cases where Covid-19 was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, the death rate for men was 113.1 per 100,000 for men and 54.1 per 100,000 for women.

Death rates increased in every age group for both men and women, and the gap between men and women was significant from age 55 and up. 

The ONS pointed out that, in general, men have a higher mortality rate than women. It also found the mortality rate in England was ‘significantly higher’ than in Wales, at 69.7 deaths per 100,000 people compared to 44.5 deaths per 100,000 people.

 Its analysis looked at all coronavirus-related deaths that occurred in England and Wales between March 1 and 31 2020, registered up to April 6 2020.

But the ONS cautioned that the total number of deaths for the month is likely to increase as more deaths are registered. Nine in 10 of the deaths involving Covid-19 were in people with pre-existing conditions, the ONS said.

 Chronic ischaemic heart disease was the most common main pre-existing condition and was involved in 541 deaths (14% of the total). It also found that Covid-19 was the third most frequent underlying cause of death.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease was the underlying cause of death in the most deaths for the month (6,401 – the equivalent of 130 deaths per 100,000 people), and which accounted for 14% of all deaths in March. This was followed by ischaemic heart diseases, with 4,042 deaths (83 per 100,000 people), which accounted for 9% of the total.

Despite the Covid-19 outbreak, the overall mortality rate for March was ‘significantly lower’ than the five-year average, the ONS said. It suggests this could be due in part to the colder winters in 2015 and 2018, which led to a higher number of deaths in the winter months.

FROM metro.co.uk/2020/04/16/another-870-dead-uks-coronavirus-death-toll-approaches