Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Why are excess deaths higher now than during Covid?

(Photo: iStock)

More people are dying every week than during Covid’s peak years. Last month there were 1,482 more deaths than average each week – known as excess deaths – compared with just 315 two years ago and 1,322 last year. In the week to 21 October (the most recent week of data) ONS figures reveal there were some 1,646 excess deaths alone. As has been reported before, excess deaths are most stark at home: with deaths in private homes nearly a third above average. Meanwhile in hospitals and care homes they’re just 15 and 10 per cent above average. The shift to dying at home, and the health service ceasing to function, continues. 

What’s causing these deaths? It isn’t Covid: just 27 per cent of excess deaths in England for the most recent week have Covid as the underlying cause. Instead, problems that built up over lockdowns are being keenly felt now. A report from the British Heart Foundation, published this week, found that over 30,000 people in England have died ‘needlessly’ of heart disease since the start of the pandemic. That’s 230 deaths every week that wouldn’t have happened had we not locked down. 

This is in part due to treatment delays during lockdowns. By the end of August some 346,000 people were on a cardiac waiting list in England – the highest number on record. This is expected to get even higher too: modelling suggests it could be as high as 395,000 by next April, some 224,000 more than before the pandemic. One in five of those heart patients say their health has gotten worse since the pandemic. And, as the below graph shows, over 7,000 patients have now been waiting over a year for a heart procedure. Heart and circulatory conditions account for nearly a quarter of the life expectancy gap between the rich and poorest.

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