Weekly Deaths Update (part 7)

Registered weekly deaths in England & Wales 2020 - 2022

As promised, herewith time series for weekly COVID deaths across England & Wales for the period 2020/w1 to 2022/w13 for those under 50 years of age at death. Counts for the youngest groups were seriously spartan so I’ve had to lump them together into an under 20 years of age catch-all. You can see just how spartan from the table below

I’m hoping that folk by now will realise what we’re labelling a ‘COVID’ death isn’t necessarily a COVID death. That is to say a death whereby SARS-COV-2 infection has been verified by more than just a PCR test with other pathogens ruled out, this sole infection leading to onset of severe COVID-19 symptoms and respiratory failure with diffuse alveolar damage in a patient who wasn’t also suffering from other forms of major illness. There is such a thing as multicausal death yet when it comes to COVID only COVID counts. Until we get our hands on the medical notes for each and every patient and undertake a rigorous clinical audit we cannot be sure whether any…