Covid-19-related deaths rose in NI last week, says Nisra

Nisra's figures are based on death certificate information rather than test results

Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificates of 29 people in Northern Ireland in the week up to 7 January.

That is an increase of 15 on the previous week, according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra).

That takes the agency's total, based on mentions of the virus on death certificates, to 4,042.

The Department of Health's total, up to last Friday, based on a positive test being recorded, was 3,006.

Nisra's figures are higher because it records mentions of the virus on death certificates, where it may or may not have been confirmed by way of a test.

Of the agency's measure, more than two-thirds of Covid-19-related deaths have occurred in hospital (69.9%).

There have been 1,144 care home resident deaths, accounting for slightly less than a third (28.2%) of all Covid-19-related deaths.

• Further fall in weekly Covid-related deaths

People aged 75 and over accounted for 73.3% of the 4,042 Covid-19-related deaths registered between 19 March 2020 and 7 January 2022.

The provisional number of deaths from all causes registered in the week ending 7 January was 416, an increase of 173 from the previous week.

Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon and Mid Ulster council areas have had higher proportions of Covid-19-related deaths (12.3% and 8.2% respectively), compared with their share of all deaths in Northern Ireland (10.3% and 6.6% respectively), according to the Nisra figures.

The statistics also show Ards and North Down and Fermanagh and Omagh council areas both have relatively low shares of registered Covid-19-related deaths (2.2 and 2.1 percentage points lower respectively than their share of all deaths).