What is the new, official way of counting Covid deaths?
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) lists it as ‘deaths with Covid on the death registration’.
It replaces ‘deaths within 28 days of a positive test’.
How is it different?
Under the new method, it is based on deaths collated by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It represents deaths where the clinician has decided Covid was to blame somehow. For that reason, it lags by around a fortnight.
Before, the primary method — which the UKHSA said was ‘useful for rapid pandemic monitoring’ — was to count anyone who had died within four weeks of logging a positive test.
How has the official death toll changed?
Under the new method, 183,898 deaths have been recorded in England since the pandemic began.
Fatalities listed under the old method, which itself was brought in after backlash at the original counting system, stand at 180,091 currently.