Covid-19: Hywel Dda health board sees highest weekly deaths

There has now been a total of 4,732 deaths involving Covid-19 in Wales

There was another increase in deaths involving Covid-19 in Wales in the final week of 2020, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Across Wales, there were 278 deaths in the week ending 25 December, 22 more than in the week before.

Hywel Dda health board reported 36 deaths - its highest weekly figure in the pandemic so far.

Swansea Bay saw 67 deaths, the highest weekly number from among Welsh health boards.

The latest weekly total for Wales is nearly 34% of all deaths, according to the ONS figures.

It urges caution when interpreting this week's figures, due to the Christmas holidays and also one fewer bank holiday in 2020, which will affect the number of registrations.

How many deaths have there been?

• Swansea Bay saw its highest numbers of weekly deaths since the end of April, with 49 deaths in hospitals and 10 in care homes.

• Hywel Dda health board has reported 36 deaths - its highest weekly figure since the pandemic began. Of these, 16 involved patients from Carmarthenshire in hospital and 10 hospital patients from Pembrokeshire.

• Aneurin Bevan health board reported 65 deaths, also the most there since the end of April.

• There were 49 deaths involving Covid for a second week running in the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board area.

• There were 37 deaths in Cardiff and Vale and 17 deaths in the Betsi Cadwaladr area in north Wales, and seven in Powys.

Only Anglesey and Gwynedd did not see any Covid-19 deaths registered.

Swansea and Rhondda Cynon Taf were jointly the fourth-highest local authority areas for weekly deaths across England and Wales, each with 35 deaths.

• Figuring out the stats on coronavirus in Wales

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The total number of Covid deaths in Wales up to and registered by 25 December is now 4,651 deaths.

When deaths registered over the following few days are included, there was a total of 4,732.

Rhondda Cynon Taf, with 642 deaths, has the largest number of Covid-19 deaths in Wales, followed by Cardiff with 536 up to the latest week.

It is estimated that in around 90% of the deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate, it is the underlying cause of death.

ONS includes all deaths registered, when the virus is suspected or confirmed - and in all settings from hospitals to people's homes.

What about 'excess deaths'?

So-called excess deaths, which compare all registered deaths with previous years, continue to be above the five-year average.

Looking at the number of deaths we would normally expect to see at this point in the year is seen as a useful measure of how the pandemic is progressing.

In Wales, the number of deaths fell from 882 to 825 in the latest week, but this was still 307 deaths (59.3%) higher than the five-year average for that week. This is the second highest proportion after the West Midlands.

But the ONS urges caution with interpreting this particular week, as there was one fewer bank holiday than in four of the five previous Christmases, which means an extra day to register deaths in 2020.

In Wales, the number of deaths from all causes in 2020 up to 25 December was 37,067, which is 3,736 (10.1%) more than the five-year average.