Coronavirus has killed three times as many people as influenza and pneumonia this year, official data revealed today ahead of the government’s plan to tighten restrictions to prevent a second wave of the virus.
Covid-19 was listed as the underlying cause of death in 48,168 fatalities recorded in England and Wales between January and August, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Influenza caused just 394 deaths during the same time period and pneumonia — often caused by the flu — was behind 13,619 deaths.
But deaths from the two common respiratory illnesses have actually outnumbered Covid-19 fatalities since July, when the pandemic began to fade away, the data also revealed. For instance, flu and influenza killed 14 people on August 31 — the most recent day figures are available for, compared to five from the coronavirus.
The report also revealed flu or pneumonia were mentioned on more than 70,000 death certificates, which is more than the 52,327 linked to Covid-19. When a condition is mentioned on a death certificate it means doctors consider it to have contributed to someone’s death but to have not been the main factor that lead to the end of their life.
Deaths from pneumonia and influenza were seven times below the average 100,000 deaths they cause each year, which experts said was due to social distancing restrictions hampering the transmission of the diseases.
This means that without lockdown restrictions Covid-19 could easily have caused more than a tenth of a million fatalities.
The report comes after Donald Trump claimed the virus is ‘far less lethal’ than the flu and urged Americans to ‘learn to live with’ the disease.
His allegations were immediately debunked by experts, and Facebook and Twitter placed a warning on a post by the American President saying his words were ‘misleading’ and ‘potentially harmful’.
This graph shows the total number of deaths annually (blue line) and those from pneumonia and influenza (green line). The number of deaths due to Covid-19 has been estimated based on available data and compared to previous years. It is represented by the black line running across the graph
The ONS report also revealed that the risk of someone dying from coronavirus was ‘significantly higher’ for all age groups than their risk of death from flu or pneumonia.
Statisticians said those aged 85 and over were most at risk, with a fatality rate of 1,243.9 per 100,000 compared to 862.5 per 100,000 for pneumonia and influenza.
Deaths from coronavirus exceeded those caused by the flu from March, when the pandemic first struck, until the end of June.
The rates then stayed roughly the same until the end of August, the last month for which data is available, but there are fears Covid-19 may again be causing a higher number of deaths than the common conditions.
Figures show average deaths from coronavirus have more than quadrupled from 13 on September 16 to 53 just over three weeks later.
But experts have pointed out the number of deaths from pneumonia and influenza has also likely risen, as more people succumb to the conditions during the cold winter months.
Care homes, hospitals and private homes all recorded more deaths from coronavirus than from pneumonia and influenza, official data reveals.
The disease accounted for almost seven times the number of deaths due to the common conditions in care homes alone, where they had 14,412 fatalities where Covid-19 was the underlying cause compared to 2,128 due to the flu.
In hospitals there were three times more deaths due to coronavirus than the common diseases, at 30,846 compared to 9,829.
And in private homes there were 2,096 deaths due to coronavirus compared to 1,871 from pneumonia and influenza.
All locations saw their average number of deaths from pneumonia and influenza fall below the five-year average.
The data also revealed that coronavirus was the underlying cause of 12.4 per cent of all fatalities between January and August, when 390,000 were recorded, while those from influenza and pneumonia accounted for 3.6 per cent of the total.
Adding in the deaths from the virus means England and Wales saw their highest number of fatalities since 2000, according to the ONS.
Sarah Caul, head of mortality analysis at the ONS, said: ‘Since 1959, which is when ONS monthly death records began, the number of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia in the first eight months of every year have been lower than the number of COVID-19 deaths seen, so far, in 2020.’
Emma Rubach, Head of Health Advice at Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, said the figures were ‘sobering’ and warned Britons not to become complacent about the ‘risks posed by the flu, which can cause severe respiratory complications, particularly for people who have lung conditions such as asthma and COPD.
‘The virus is continually changing and so getting a vaccine each year is the best form of defence from new strains’, she said. ‘People at higher risk are being given priority, but flu season lasts until spring, so for those who haven’t yet been able to get a vaccine, we’d urge them to keep trying.’
Deaths due to influenza and pneumonia have remained stable since 2001, the ONS reports, which they say was due to the introduction of the widespread vaccine programme the year before.
In 2020 the highest number of deaths from the common viruses was recorded in January, when 3,067 succumbed to the diseases, but this was 1,151 below the five-year average.
The year with the lowest number of deaths from the viruses was last year, when 25,406 were recorded – a drop of almost 10,000 from the highest number in the 21st century in 2003, when there were 34,496.
The UK Government is rolling out a large flu vaccination programme this year, aiming to get the jab to more than 30million people in an effort to prevent the NHS being hit by a ‘double whammy’ of flu and coronavirus.
