Excess mortality in England during the COVID-19 pandemic

ConclusionsReporting overall excess mortality early in the pandemic is important to inform policy makers and public about the true scale of the death toll when coding is inconsistent and developing. This approach has highlighted the large increases in already established inequalities in mortality. It provides rapid surveillance of developing disparities for national and local decision makers. It has been used to inform policy around reducing disparities and to revise messaging to encourage hospital attendance for non- COVID-19 health problems.Key messagesExcess deaths from all causes is a robust measure of overall impact, unaffected by coding consistency.COVID-19 has dramatically worsened established inequalities between ethnic groups and deprivation groups.
Source: The European Journal of Public Health - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research