Thousands more people than usual are dying ... but it’s not from Covid

Almost 18 months of delayed treatments, fewer consultations, and a lack of immunity may be starting to take their toll



While focus remains firmly fixed on Covid-19, a second health crisis is quietly emerging in Britain. Since the beginning of July, there have been thousands of excess deaths that were not caused by coronavirus.

According to health experts, this is highly unusual for the summer. Although excess deaths are expected during the winter months, when cold weather and seasonal infections combine to place pressure on the NHS, summer generally sees a lull.

This year is a worrying outlier.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), since July 2 there have been 9,619 excess deaths in England and Wales, of which 48 per cent (4,635) were not caused by Covid-19.

So if all these extra people are not dying from coronavirus, what is killing them?

Data from Public Health England (PHE) shows that during that period there were 2,103 extra death registrations with ischemic heart disease, 1,552 with heart failure, as well as an extra 760 deaths with cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke and aneurysm and 3,915 with other circulatory diseases.

Acute and chronic respiratory infections were also up with 3,416 more mentions on death certificates than expected since the start of July, while there have been 1,234 extra urinary system disease deaths, 324 with cirrhosis and liver disease and 1,905 with diabetes.

Since the start of the pandemic, charities and health bodies have warned that people were struggling to access care as the NHS switched to fighting the pandemic.

Now, 18 months of delayed treatments may be starting to take their toll.

Dr Charlotte Summers, an intensive care consultant from Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, told a Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) event this week that patients were arriving at A&E with serious conditions that had worsened during the pandemic.

“There is an increase in non-Covid emergencies that are arriving at the front doors of hospitals from all the delays the pandemic has created already. Things like people presenting later with tumours, and therefore having bowel perforations and aneurysms and lots of other things that were delayed,” she said.

“We've got a massive elective backlog....and we’re potentially likely to have flu at increased levels this year because immunity to influenza will have waned.

“It feels like winter is already here, rather than it is coming. It’s worse this year than I think I remember at any point in the last 20 years.”

The country is also suffering because of a lack of immunity. While lockdowns, social distancing, isolation and masks kept Covid-19 down, it also prevented other diseases from circulating.

The danger is that these added pressures on the NHS will force the Government into locking down the country again this winter, mandating masks and work from home rules.

If it does, we could end up in a perpetuating state of low-immunity in winter that it will be difficult to escape from. The Covid-19 response may have inadvertently created an ongoing health crisis from which there is no way back.

Not dying from COVID, but because of COVID. - And many predicted this. Focusing on one 'virus; that most would never know they had was a foolhardy strategy from the start.