Covid-19 update: Sharp rise in non-Covid-19 deaths in UK care homes

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News and analysis

New data from the ONS shows a spike in the death toll in England and Wales compared with the five-year average: 7,996 excess deaths for the week to 10 April. Details below.
Parliament returns today. Up to 50 MPs are allowed in the chamber at any time, and some will join on Zoom. James Forsyth explains below.
The NHS may not have enough face masks if the government advises the public to wear them. Dr John Lee weighs up the evidence of masks on Coffee House.
The government has failed to contact hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people who should’ve been told to stay home and assigned food deliveries, an investigation has revealed.
Teachers unions say schools will not reopen until five demands are met, including access to PPE. Scotland’s schools are expected to remain closed until at least the start of the summer holidays in June.
At least 100 health and care workers have died in the UK since the Covid-19 outbreak began.

Sharp rise in non-Covid-19 deaths in UK care homes by Fraser Nelson

Covid-19 kills people two ways: directly, and indirectly. So said Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, at the start of the pandemic. Yes, if people stay home, they are far less likely to get a virus. But the transformation of the NHS into a Covid-19 service would also have severe implications. The dip in cancer and mental health care will point to deaths further along the road. But in the pre-Covid-19 rush, thousands of hospital patients were sent to care homes with worse facilities. And what would become of them? Like Covid-19 itself, it’s hard to tell: we see only fragments of data. But an important fragment has fallen into view this morning.

The ONS reported 4,927 deaths in care homes in the week to 10 April, double the figure from before the crisis. And barely a third of them – 826 – explained by Covid-19. We should never read too much into a week’s data, but when care home deaths double and Covid-19 explains less than a third of them then questions need to be asked. Many Covid deaths will be unreported. Perhaps people who would have died in hospital were sent to care homes to die, so the place of death has simply moved. But that does not explain the national figure. The ONS data this morning shows 7,996 ‘excess’ deaths in England and Wales for the week to 10 April, of which 6,213 were linked to Covid-19. That means 1,783 ‘excess’ deaths not linked to Covid-19, Add it to the previous week (graph below), and that’s 4,390 ‘excess’ deaths not accounted for by Covid-19. A worrying picture. And one that deserves far more scrutiny.

In words

Unfortunately, I did not get corona.

– Urban Persson, leader of Storfors council in Sweden, has shocked colleagues by admitting that he went to Stockholm in hope of catching the virus.

ei_(8).jpeg — The United States agreed with Mexico and Canada to restrict non-essential travel and is planning to repatriate undocumented immigrants arriving from those countries (Photo: Getty)

The return of (Zoom) Parliament by James Forsyth

Parliament returns today, albeit in a very odd way. There will be some MPs in the chamber and others Zooming in. It will not be parliament as we are used to. One thing that the Zoom Parliament will change is that it will give an indication of where parliamentary opinion is on the lockdown. I have been struck talking to Tory MPs over the past week or so, how many of them want the government to set out a much clearer exit strategy. The desire of these Tory grandees for a more detailed exit strategy will make it easier for Keir Starmer to demand one. With former cabinet ministers pushing for it, it will be harder to dismiss Starmer’s demands as politicking. Read more on Coffee House.

Global news

Italy will begin easing its lockdown on 4 May, which will allow some people to go back to work. Meanwhile, Singapore’s lockdown has been extended until 1 June and Germany’s Oktoberfest has been cancelled.
Donald Trump temporarily suspends immigration to the US amid pandemic.
The EU’s coronavirus relief fund awarded Hungary twice as much money as virus-stricken Italy.
Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim majority country, has banned travel during upcoming Ramadan celebrations.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has issued an order allowing people to be married via video conference.
There will be life-threatening consequences if annual monsoon preparations cannot be completed on time in Bangladesh amid the global outbreak of Covid-19, warned the UN’s Refugee Agency.

Research

Evidence so far suggests children, on average, are not as badly affected by Covid-19 as adults. But are they ‘super-spreaders’ as initially feared? New research published in Clinical Infectious Diseases traces a Covid-19-positive child, who was infected in the French chalet back in early February by the first Briton to test positive for Covid-19 – an English businessman who had travelled from Singapore to France on his way back to the UK. It finds that the nine-year-old ‘did not transmit the disease’ despite coming in contact with more than 170 people, suggesting a ‘potential different transmission dynamics in children’.

In data

Latest data suggests England reached its Covid-19 peak on 8 April.

Coronomics

The price of oil has turned negative for the first time in history, as demand for energy has plummeted. James Ball explains on Coffee House what’s going on.
144,000 companies signed up to the UK government’s furlough scheme in 24 hours, accounting for the wages of more than 1 million employees, at a cost of up to £500 million per week to the taxpayer. The OBR says the total cost of the scheme could reach £42 billion.
More than 1.8 million benefit claims have been made in the UK since mid-March.
Virgin Australia has fallen into voluntary administration, becoming the first big corporate casualty of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Alcohol sales in the UK rose by 22% in March, compared to 20.6% for regular shopping.
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre says it shut down more than 2,000 online coronavirus scams last month. The total includes 471 fake shops selling fraudulent Covid-19 related items.
The Spanish hairdressers’ association predicts that 20,000 salons will close as a result of the pandemic, around 42% of the country’s total.