Deaths in England and Wales were 7.8% below the five-year average for the week ending January 7th, ONS data show, in the latest sign that the pandemic is coming to an end. The Telegraph has more.
The fall remains even though the ONS has removed 2020 from its five-year average figure because the first year of the pandemic was so extreme.
When 2021 was also removed there were just 87 more deaths than expected, which experts said was “nothing unusual”, arguing that the 922 Covid deaths reported that week were being offset by fewer deaths from traditional winter killers such as flu.
The ONS figures also show that the virus was not the primary cause of death in nearly a quarter of the registered Covid deaths.
Prof Andrew Hayward, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said he expected the virus to settle into a seasonal pattern that will cause “much less disruption”.
“We may still get quite big winters of infection but not the sort of level where we can justify wholesale societal closedown,” Prof Hayward told Times Radio. “So I think it is genuinely an optimistic picture.”
For the U.K. as a whole, deaths were down 8.3%, with 1,255 fewer people dying than would normally be expected for the first week of January.
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