London becomes the first region in England to see deaths fall BELOW average

The number of people dying in London has fallen below average for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak started in March, promising data shows.

A weekly report from the Office for National Statistics shows that the number of people who died of any cause in London was three per cent lower than average between May 30 and June 5.

This includes people who died with the coronavirus as well as anyone else who died in that time.

Over the past five years, the average number of people to die in that week has been 917, but it was 891 in 2020 – a fall of 2.8 per cent.

Meanwhile deaths remain higher than average in every other region of England, and Wales, with Wales still seeing 15 per cent more deaths than usual.

The good news comes as Covid-19-specific data reveals the virus’s death toll hit a 10-week low, marking another significant fall as the disease fades out of Britain.

Lockdown loosened a bit more for people in England yesterday when ‘non-essential’ high street shops reopened to the public.

Data from the ONS, National Records of Scotland and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) show at least 52,594 people had died of Covid-19 by June 5 – 12,000 more than official records showed at the time.

The week from May 30 to June 5 marked another significant fall in the number of people dying with the coronavirus in England and Wales as the weekly total hit a 10-week low and the lowest since the end of March.

Some 1,588 people died with the virus in that week, down 13 per cent from the 1,822 who died in the week before. 

England and Wales will not have returned to pre-lockdown levels of mortality until fewer than 539 people die in a week – that was the number recorded in the week ending March 27, when schools and workplaces closed.

As the weekly death toll continues to tumble – and some experts are hopeful it could hit zero by the beginning of July – Britain’s total number of victims is still rising. It is third worst in the world behind only the US and Brazil.  

Department of Health officials have counted 41,736 Covid-19 deaths in Britain so far, from people who tested positive for the virus, with only 38 announced yesterday – the lowest number for a Monday since March.

But the ONS’s data, updated today, suggests that the true figure was already 47,820 for England and Wales alone by June 5.

And the National Records of Scotland recorded 4,000 north of the border by June 7, while NISRA in Northern Ireland had 774 by June 5.

The reason these numbers are higher is that they include everyone who has the coronavirus mentioned on their death certificate, whether or not they were tested or whether it was the main cause of death.

By June 5, to which the backdated data extends, the Department of Health had counted 40,261 victims, meaning at least 12,000 were missing from its count.

London becoming the first region to record fewer deaths than average for the first time since Covid-19 hit the city is a welcome milestone for the capital, which was hit hard and fast by the virus at the start of the outbreak.

Deaths in hospitals, nationally, are also now below average – the ONS data showed 11 per cent fewer people died in hospitals during the first week of June than would normally be expected.

But across the rest of England and Wales, people continued to die in larger-than-usual numbers because of the coronavirus outbreak.

This was felt most in Wales, where the number of deaths was 14.8 per cent higher than average.

In the North West there were 11.8 per cent more fatalities than usual, while the figure was 11.4 per cent in the West Midlands. No other region had more than 10 per cent excess deaths in that week: North East (9.5 per cent); Yorkshire & The Humber (8.6 per cent); East Midlands (8 per cent); South East (7.5 per cent); East (4.2 per cent) and South West (3.2 per cent).

The North West of England, which includes Cumbria, Manchester and Liverpool, had the highest actual number of extra deaths, with 156 more people than usual dying in a week – 22 per day. The total rose from 1,322 average to 1,478.