Covid deaths in England and Wales are 70% higher than the "in hospital with positive test" count

[muriel_volestrangler]

The ONS statistics for registered deaths are now available up to the week ending 27th March, from here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales (latest spreasheet - "Covid-19 E&W Comparisons" sheet)

Of those who had died by 27th March (and had been registered by the 1st April), the figure announced daily, of those in hospital who had tested positive, was 964; the total for all deaths for which Covid-19 is cited by the certifying doctor (which will often be in conjunction with something else was 1639. A logarithmic plot:



The vaguely good news is that the red curve shows it's not quite going up truly exponentially, but it's still going up fast.

The bad news is that this means the estimate from Public Health England for week 14, ending 3rd April, is about 5000 excess deaths in the week - see https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878916/Weekly_all_cause_mortality_surveillance_week_15_2020_report.pdf , and the figure 1 graph near the bottom.