Non-COVID-19 deaths due to each cause plotted have returned to approximately pre-COVID-19 levels (pre Week 11) after peaking between Weeks 14 and 16. Deaths due to influenza and pneumonia peaked in Week 14 and fell sooner, reaching pre-COVID-19 levels around Week 18 and have since been slightly below pre-COVID-19 levels.
Deaths due to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions peaked slightly later, in Week 16, and have fallen more slowly. This could indicate some deaths due to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are linked to longer-term changes, such as changes to practice in care homes to combat COVID-19.
These results also indicate that major causes of death have returned to more typical patterns following Weeks 11 to 18, while the composition of deaths by place of death observed earlier has continued to change. This is particularly interesting when care home and private home deaths both increased in Weeks 11 to 18, but have since presented different trends. The ONS’s
analysis of deaths in the care sector release, and the forthcoming report on deaths in private homes, explore these two settings in more detail, including by cause of death within each setting.
Deaths due to influenza and pneumonia were below the five-year average earlier in the year probably because of the relatively mild winter and low levels of circulating flu. After a brief rise in Weeks 11 to 18, the levels are back to slightly below average levels for this time of year, despite it no longer being the season for winter flu. It could be that increased social distancing has led to reduced infection rates for flu and other infectious conditions, or that some of the population susceptible to flu have died due to other causes such as COVID-19. As such this could be another example of mortality displacement.