Covid in Wales: Weekly deaths at five month low

A total of 9,639 deaths involving Covid have now occurred during the pandemic in Wales

There have been 24 deaths due to Covid in Wales - the lowest weekly total for more than five months, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

It looks at death certificates in which doctors have given causes of death.

The figures for the week ending 11 February show out of 40 deaths, in which Covid was a factor, it was the underlying cause in 24 of them.

Deaths due to Covid were more than seven times higher in the same week in 2021.

Meanwhile, figures also show numbers of hospital patients with confirmed Covid continued to fall over the week, while numbers of Covid patients in critical care and those being admitted to hospital remain stable and relatively low.

For deaths which involved Covid - where it was a contributory cause and is mentioned on the death certificate - the 40 deaths compared with 76 deaths in the previous week.

Nine deaths involving Covid occurred in care homes.

There were no deaths involving Covid in six counties: Blaenau Gwent, Ceredigion, Merthyr Tydfil and Powys, and also none in the Cardiff and the Vale health board area for the first time in 23 weeks.

A total of 9,639 deaths involving Covid have now occurred during the pandemic in Wales.

ONS also records so-called "excess deaths".

This has been seen as a key measure of the pandemic's impact because it looks at deaths from all causes overall, compared with a five-year, non-pandemic average.

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So since March 2020, there have been 6,179 more deaths than we might expect to see normally.

Deaths ran above average for the last half of 2021 but have been below or the same as the five-year pre-pandemic norm for the last six weeks.

There were 672 deaths from all causes in the latest week - 57 fewer than the 2015-19 average.

Numbers of patients in hospital in Wales with confirmed Covid are continuing to fall.

The Digital Health and Care Wales figures also indicate that on average in the last week nearly 74% of those Covid patients in acute beds were in hospital to be treated primarily for something else.

There was a rolling average of 436 hospital patients with confirmed Covid on 21 February, down 8% on a week ago.

There were 71% more people in hospital with confirmed Covid at the same point in 2021.

Only 93 (26%) of confirmed Covid patients in acute beds on Monday were being primarily treated for the virus, with 266 in hospital to be treated for other conditions.

The average daily number of patients on critical care or on invasive ventilation is 13 - roughly the same as a week ago but a third of the number in early January. These are the lowest numbers seen since mid-July last year.

Four health boards had only one Covid patient in critical care on Monday.

Covid case rates in the community have become harder to interpret, because of the numbers with Covid who are no longer getting a test.

Since early January, most people who test positive with a lateral flow test are not asked to take a follow-up swab PCR test, so don't count towards the main case numbers.

But even if we roughly estimate what the picture would look like if we counted them, cases would still be 76% down on the peak in January.

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• The PCR tests-only case rate is 233.5 cases per 100,000. It's not been this low since mid-August but can't be compared because of the big change in testing policy in January.

• The daily average number of cases is down to 1,052.

• Ceredigion (319.1 cases per 100,000) and Cardiff (305) have the highest local case rates

• There are no hotspots now in local communities above 1,000 cases per 100,000 and we are starting to see some local areas with not enough positive results to register.

• The Wales positivity rate is continuing to fall - down to 24.5%.