Where are the excess deaths?

Author: Tony Dent

There has been extensive news coverage of the difficulties experienced by the National Health Service, with some commentators linking the difficulties to an unusual increase in deaths.  For example the organisation Pulse headlined on 6^th January that “Deaths in England and Wales 20% higher than normal for time of year” and went on to explain that “Figures up to the 23 December show 14,530 deaths registered, which is 20.7% above the past five years or 2,493 excess deaths, the ONS reported.”

Looking into this claim we can confirm that the numbers quoted by Pulse are reproduced from the statistical bulletin published by the ONS on 10^th January 2023 which provides data on the numbers of deaths by week for all of the year 2022.  In particular it summarises the final 2 weeks of 2022 as:

• In the week ending 30 December 2022 (Week 52), 9,517 deaths were registered in England and Wales; 393 of these deaths mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, accounting for 4.1% of all deaths.

 

• This is a decrease in all deaths compared with the week ending 23 December 2022 (Week 51), when the number of all-cause deaths registered was 14,530; COVID-19 accounted for 429 of these deaths (3.0%).

However, the summary then goes on to compare the week 51 data with the average of deaths for that single week over the 5 year period 2014 to 2019 as follows:

• The number of deaths was above the five-year average in private homes (36.9% above, 684 excess deaths), hospitals (14.8% above, 537 excess deaths), care homes (20.4% above; 371 excess deaths) and other settings (0.2% above, 1 excess death) in Week 52 in England and Wales.

 

As is shown by the above difference between weeks 51 and 52 for 2022, there is a considerable variation in the numbers from week to week.  Although that specific difference may largely be explained by the fact that week 52 included Christmas, it is also the case that the 14,530 deaths registered in week 51 should not be highlighted as unusually high.  The following analysis from the ONS data shows that there had been 4 weeks with a higher number of deaths in the previous 7 years, whether or not the Covid influenced deaths are included.

 

Deaths per week 2015 to 2022
	Average Deaths per week				Maximum Weekly Deaths				Minimum Weekly Deaths
2015	10,170				16,237				7,524
2016	10,086				13,045				7,909
2017	10,252				13,715				8,149
2018	10,372				15,050				7,131
2019	10,139				12,609				7,533
2020	11,587				22,351				7,739
2021	11,267				18,676				7,778
2022	11,094				14,530				6,825
Deaths excluding Covid involvement:
		Average		Maximum				Minimum
2015		10,170		16,237				7,524
2016		10,086		13,045				7,909
2017		10,252		13,715				8,149
2018		10,372		15,050				7,131
2019		10,139		12,609				7,533
2020		11,157		13,593				7,739
2021		9,787		10,243				7,694
2022		10,457		13,046				6,639
Source: ONS WEB SITE

 

We therefore consider that the amount of variation in the number of deaths week by week makes the kind of detailed reporting as provided by the ONS potentially misleading, in particular the use of the term ‘excess deaths’ is pejorative.

 

Simon Briscoe in his Britain in Numbers blog site has also drawn attention to this subject. In particular, he has pointed out that the number of deaths had grown over the period 2014 to 2019.

Thus, he asserts that when seeking a comparison for week 51 of 2022, the ONS should have taken account of the trend line of the growth in deaths instead of the average of week 51 for the 5 year period.

 

Since the population of England and Wales continues to grow, it should be no surprise that the number of deaths also increases over time.  It seems only reasonable that he ONS should take this growth into account whenever they compare a current figure with any figure from the past.

Tony Dent:  Better Statistics