23 May 2022
Deaths due to COVID-19 have been much lower in recent months than earlier in the pandemic. However, while we can use deaths from flu and pneumonia to put COVID-19 into context, we cannot say for certain whether the two conditions are behaving, or will behave, in similar ways in the future.
Between 13 March 2020 and 1 April 2022, there were more deaths involving flu and pneumonia than COVID-19. However, the number of deaths in which COVID-19 was identified as the underlying cause of death are four times that of those due to flu and pneumonia.
The proportion of deaths involving COVID-19 that were also caused by the disease has been declining during 2022, falling from 90% in Spring 2020 to 62% in the week ending 1 April 2022. This is still much higher than the proportion of deaths involving flu and pneumonia that were due to those conditions in the same week (20%).
COVID-19 also has a different impact across age groups to flu and pneumonia. The average age of death for COVID-19 has been lower than for deaths due to flu and pneumonia throughout the pandemic.
Around 1 in 12 (7.9%) deaths due to COVID-19 were among those aged below 60 years, compared with 1 in 20 (5.0%) deaths due to flu and pneumonia.
The average age of death is lower for COVID-19 than flu and pneumonia
Mean age of deaths registered due to COVID-19 and flu and pneumonia, England and Wales, March 2020 to March 2022
Not startling figures but nonetheless illuminating … 