Public Health England now publishes weekly excess mortality in England broken down by age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, underlying cause of death, and place of death
This post originally appeared in a shorter form on Facebook. It has been updated with the latest data at the time of writing.
Public Health England now publishes weekly excess mortality in England broken down by age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, underlying cause of death, and place of death.
There are a few key things to note.
It is still mostly older (defined as 45+) adults as a group that has greater than expected excess deaths.
Black/Other males and females have the highest ratio of registered/expected deaths than other ethnic groups; for Black males this ratio is 2832:1214 or 2.33.
For Black females the ratio is 2043:1063 or 1.92, for Other females the ratio is 1365:644 or 2.12.
The Chief Medical Officer for the United Kingdom, Chris Whitty, told the general public in the early months of the pandemic that excess deaths was the ‘key metric’ when assessing the load on the NHS.
Looking at excess deaths is also a reliable (if rather distressing) way to see the impact that COVID-19 is having on population subgroups.