Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Tuesday, Aug 05, 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

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
BP’s Largest Oil and Gas Find in 25 Years Uncovered Offshore Brazil
JPMorgan and Coinbase Unveil Partnership to Let Chase Cardholders Buy Crypto Directly
British Tourist Dies Following Hair Transplant in Turkey, Police Investigate
WhatsApp Users Targeted in New Scam Involving Account Takeovers
Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines After Threats from Former Russian President Medvedev
Germany’s Economic Breakdown and the Return of Militarization: From Industrial Collapse to a New Offensive Strategy
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
Kurdistan Workers Party Takes Symbolic Step Towards Peace in Northern Iraq
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
Russia Formally Recognizes Taliban Government in Afghanistan
Mediators Edge Closer to Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Agreement
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
Amazon Reaches Major Automation Milestone with Over One Million Robots
Meta Announces Formation of Ambitious AI Unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs
China Unveils Miniature Insect-Like Surveillance Drone
Marc Marquez Claims Victory at Dutch Grand Prix Amidst Family Misfortune
Iran Executes Alleged Israeli Spies and Arrests Hundreds Amid Post-War Crackdown
Trump Asserts Readiness for Further Strikes on Iran Amid Nuclear Tensions
Iran's Parliament Votes to Suspend Cooperation with Nuclear Watchdog
Trump Announces Upcoming US-Iran Meeting Amid Controversial Airstrikes
Trump Moves to Reshape Middle East Following Israel-Iran Conflict
NATO Leaders Endorse Plan for Increased Defence Spending
U.S. Crude Oil Prices Drop Below $65 Amid Market Volatility
Explosions Rock Doha as Iranian Missiles Target Qatar
“You Have 12 Hours to Flee”: Israeli Threat Campaign Targets Surviving Iranian Officials
Oman Set to Introduce Personal Income Tax, First in Gulf
Germany and Italy Under Pressure to Repatriate $245bn of Gold from US Vaults
Iran Intensifies Crackdown on Alleged Mossad Operatives After Sabotage Claims
Trump Praises Iran’s ‘Very Weak’ Response After U.S. Strikes and Presses Israel to Pursue Peace
WATCH: Israeli forces show the aftermath of a massive airstrike at Iran's Isfahan nuclear site
We have new information and breaking details to share about what is shaping up to be a historic air campaign tonight
Six Massive Bombs Dropped on Fordow; Trump: 'A Historic Moment for the U.S., Israel, and the World'
×