CMI assesses impact of COVID-19 on total UK deaths

During the coronavirus pandemic, the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) is publishing weekly UK mortality analysis through its mortality monitor. This week’s update shows the position as at week 16 of 2020 (11 April to 17 April) based on provisional England & Wales deaths data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 28 April 2020.

The key points of this update are:

• There were 2.4 times as many deaths registered in week 16 of 2020 than if death rates had been the same as week 16 of 2019. The ratio was 1.8 in week 15 and 1.6 in week 14.
   
• These ‘excess’ deaths in week 16 were 1.5 times the number of registered deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
   
• There may have been around 45,000 more deaths in the UK for the year to 27 April 2020 than if mortality rates were similar to those experienced in 2019.

Cobus Daneel, Chair of the CMI Mortality Projections Committee said: “Our ongoing analysis suggests that the true impact of the coronavirus pandemic is roughly double that of commonly-quoted figures for deaths in hospitals. This not only shows that a large number of COVID 19 deaths are occurring outside hospitals, but also suggest that there are significant knock-on effects not directly attributable to COVID-19.”

All mortality monitor weekly updates are publicly available on the mortality monitor page.