CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus: Largest yearly increase in deaths since 1940

Winston Churchill visits the ruins of Coventry Cathedral following its destruction in November 1940
Winston Churchill visits the ruins of Coventry Cathedral following its destruction in November 1940
GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

Last year there was the largest increase in deaths in a single year in England and Wales since 1940.

Office for National Statistics figures show that there were 608,002 deaths registered in England and Wales last year, up 15 per cent from 530,841 in 2019.

It is the first double-digit increase since 1940, which had 16 per cent more deaths than 1939. It is also the highest total number of deaths since 1918, when there were 611,861. The total last year was 75,925 above the five-year average.

With almost 168,000 of the deaths occurring in private homes, an end-of-life charity warned of a “silent crisis raging”.

Sarah Caul, head of mortality analysis at the ONS, said that it would be expected for deaths to increase