UK all cause death now below 5 year average. (Still some COVID deaths offset by fewer non-COVID deaths).
You can see the approx trend (ofc certain problems with data) on UK COVID deaths here from World in Data.
Around 1200 to 1500 people die in the UK a day. As of end July around 60 of those deaths are COVID-realted. This suggests about 80 - 100 non-COVID deaths are currently not happening (although some of this is likely pull through where sick elderly died a little earlier in the year but were still likely to pass in 2020).
This - at least in the short term - suggest lockdown and perhaps certain areas of (lack of) activity are positive for death rate eg accidents, maybe drugs + alcohol ? I wonder about long-term eg diet and exercise? But, actually enforced home stay --> more home cooking --> healthier ? And maybe exercise is possibly over-rated??? (Maybe wishful thinking here).
In England and Wales you can see some COVID/Non-COVID splits here: (England/Wales were running below average in the early part of the year pre-COVID, so it’s possible there’s been a slight positive structural trend on a 5 year view eg via wealth and health effects, I’m unsure)
Addendum: Turns out the Imperial team have looked at this. They note this:
Possible interpretations of excess non-COVID-19 deaths
If excess non-COVID-19 deaths are higher than expected deaths: First, it is possible that deaths actually caused by COVID-19 are incorrectly attributed to other conditions. This could be due to lack of a diagnosis, nonspecific symptoms before death, multimorbidity making attribution of death difficult, lack of knowledge by the reporting medical staff, or stigma-related concerns of family members. Non-COVID-19 related deaths could be genuinely higher during the pandemic. First, the pandemic has caused disruption to healthcare provision. Hospitals have cancelled elective surgeries in some weeks, possibly resulting in increased mortality in those patients. Second, even critically ill patients may be reluctant to access care, for fear of hospital-acquired infections. Both inability and reluctance to access care may have led to patients’ death, when they would have survived in the absence of the pandemic.
If excess non-COVID-19 deaths are lower than expected deaths: This finding could be due to irregularities in reporting. Second, the reduction in mobility and travel associated with control measures, particularly stay-at-home orders, may result in a reduction in accidents and associated deaths. Third, it is also possible that COVID-19 disease may cause mortality displacement, a short-term forward shift in mortality whereby a certain proportion of deaths due to COVID-19 occurred in patients that would have died of other conditions in the following weeks or months. This implies that over time, COVID-19 deaths that are higher than expected all-cause deaths are followed by lower than expected non-COVID-19 deaths in the following weeks and months, resulting in a deficit in excess non-COVID-19 deaths. In addition, hospitals have increased their capacity over time to treat non-COVID patients or patients changed their behaviour and started visiting hospitals again resulting in a reduction in deaths in line with expected levels.
Variations in deaths: The figures show steep increases and declines for COVID-19 deaths and unexplained deaths in some regions and for some ages over the weeks since March 2020. In some regions and weeks, excess non-COVID-19 deaths are even lower than expected deaths. These findings could have several explanations. First, case numbers vary over the pandemic, leading to variations in hospitalizations and deaths with a 2 to 3 weeks delay on average. Second, there may be irregularities in reporting. For example, in the first weeks of the pandemic, deaths due to COVID-19 may have been wrongly attributed to other conditions instead of COVID-19 but and in later weeks, non-COVID-19 deaths may have been wrongly attributed to COVID-19.
More details and splits here from the Imperial Team.
