Weekly coronavirus deaths are back to levels last seen in March

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The weekly number of Covid-19-related deaths has risen to nearly 1,000 per week – similar to levels last seen in March.

According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, there were 995 deaths across England and Wales in the week ending November 5 due to the coronavirus.

This was up from 859 Covid-related deaths the previous week, and it represented 8.6 per cent of all deaths.

The last time deaths exceeded 900 was in the week ending March 19.

Across the UK, the number of deaths recorded in the last week was 13,209. That is 1,943 more than the five-year average for deaths with 1,194 cases involving Covid – 150 more than the previous week.

Deaths from the virus have risen over the past four weeks, but have remained well below those recorded during the second wave.

At its peak, about 8,433 deaths from the coronavirus were recorded in the week ending January 22.

The highest number that occurred in a single day was 1484 on January 19.

Boris Johnson urged people to get their Covid boosters after government scientists approved plans for people over 40 to be included in the rollout.

He also warned of a “blizzard coming from the east” that could derail his hopes of a disruption-free Christmas due to coronavirus restrictions. This was a sign of a spike in infections in Europe, even though the UK still had more Covid cases than the majority of European countries.

Speaking on the Today program on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday, NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the NHS was facing “really huge pressure”.

She said: “We have now seen half a million people in hospital with Covid, and of course at the same time we launched the fastest and largest vaccination program in our history.

“But we’re really stressed out. Yesterday there were 6,864 patients in hospital with Covid. We saw a rebound in demand for urgent emergency care services – the most recent data we published just last week tells this story very clearly: Up – 999 calls per month and over 1.4 million people are being treated in A&E. Fellows put a really big focus on restoring services affected by Covid – particularly addressing the backlog; and we’re maintaining that vaccination programme.

“The other thing is the pressures on social care as well which are having an effect on us – thousands of patients in hospital need social care support to go home safely.”

When asked when “the NHS will return to normal”, she said it depends on what happened next with the pandemic and how much demand the health service sees.

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