London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Aug 22, 2025

What’s really going on with Covid deaths data?

What’s really going on with Covid deaths data?

Covid deaths are rising sharply in the UK, but an increasing proportion of these are actually due to something else, BBC analysis suggests.

That's because some people die with Covid rather than from it.

The Omicron wave is driving rising infections, which means more people will catch it and some will get sick.

Deaths will inevitably increase too, but not all will be "true" Covid ones. Others will be people who happened to test positive.

There are a number of ways we monitor the number of deaths connected to Covid. The most prominent is the daily count of anyone who has died within 28 days of testing positive.

For the vast majority of those people, Covid has been the primary cause of their death.

But there has always been a minority who died from another cause. And with Omicron infecting so many people, there is a higher likelihood of people dying from an unrelated reason in the month after testing positive than there has been in the past.

Doctors registering a death record what may have contributed to it, and what most likely caused it.

If Covid contributed in some way, that's a death "involving Covid". The number of these deaths has tracked the daily death count closely throughout most of the pandemic.

During autumn and the run-up to Christmas, only about 15% of deaths involving Covid in England and Wales did not list Covid as the cause.

In the week after Christmas, that rose to 22%.

And in the coming weeks "we might expect that to rise further" says Cambridge statistician Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter "reflecting the very high levels of people with coronavirus".


About 4.3 million people in the UK have coronavirus at the moment - a historically high level - and four times more than at the start of December.

So the number of people who might happen to test positive for coronavirus in the month before their death is likely to be on the rise too.

This wasn't as much of an issue when fewer people had coronavirus.

But at the moment you might expect to see, very roughly, about 55 of these "coincidental" Covid deaths a day, based on the roughly 2,000 people who die each day in the winter months - and the nearly 6% of people in the UK who have tested positive in the past four weeks (mostly young people at lower risk of dying).

Current figures show, on average, nearly 210 people are dying each day within 28 days of a positive test, up from 110 just before Christmas.


So a small portion of the daily Covid deaths would be "coincidental", but the rise in this type of death would account for nearly half of the rise we've seen in Covid deaths since Christmas.

The daily death figure will be a tricky measure to follow in the coming weeks says Prof Sylvia Richardson, president of the Royal Statistical Society, since it can be so influenced by how many people have tested positive recently.

She thinks the number of deaths caused by coronavirus, based on death registrations, is the "best number to watch".

That requires patience. Deaths that happen this week may not be registered until next week, and not reported for another week or two after that. So they take longer to arrive.

But they will increasingly become our best picture of Covid's sad death toll.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Bunkers, Billions and Apocalypse: The Secret Compounds of Zuckerberg and the Tech Giants
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
Taylor Swift on the Way to the Super Bowl? All the Clues Stirring Up Fans
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Apple Expands Social Media Presence in China With RedNote Account Ahead of iPhone 17 Launch
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Bill Barr Testifies No Evidence Implicated Trump in Epstein Case; DOJ Set to Release Records
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
Emails Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
JPMorgan Plans New Canary Wharf Tower
Zelenskyy and his allies say they will press Trump on security guarantees
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
The Drought in Britain and the Strange Request from the Government to Delete Old Emails
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
"No, Thanks": The Mathematical Genius Who Turned Down 1.5 Billion Dollars from Zuckerberg
The surprising hero, the ugly incident, and the criticism despite victory: "Liverpool’s defense exposed in full"
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
×