Nearly 40,000 more deaths than normal since the start of Covid-19 outbreak in England and Wales says ONS

England and Wales have recorded 38,554 more deaths than usual between the start of the Covid-19 outbreak in March and 24 April, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

Of those, only 71% were officially attributed to Covid-19 – leaving some 11,260 deaths unaccounted for.

Some of these “unexplained” deaths may be a direct result of the coronavirus while others may be due to limited access to healthcare during the pandemic.

The figures are based on weekly monitoring of deaths from all causes. We can compare this with the average number of deaths seen during comparable weeks over the last five years.