Over-80s Covid deaths have fallen by more than 90 per cent since the peak of the second wave in England and Wales, official figures revealed today in yet more proof that the vaccines are working.
Office for National Statistics data showed 379 fatalities were linked to the virus in the most elderly group in the week ending March 26 — compared to 5,354 during the darkest period of January.
Deaths for those aged 75-79 dropped 93.4 per cent over the same period, compared with falls of 92.4 per cent among those aged 70-74, 90.8 per cent for those aged 65-69 and 83.7 per cent for those aged 60-64.
Experts today said the promising figures could be pinned on the UK’s successful vaccine roll-out, with there now being a greater proportion of Covid-related deaths in younger people than during the second wave.
Around 14 per cent of all Covid victims (98 people) in the most recent week were under the age of 60. For comparison, the figure was around six per cent last autumn (55).
Everyone over 60 has been offered at least one dose of the Covid vaccine in England and Wales, and Department of Health figures show more than 31million Britons — or three in five adults — have received a jab.
The figures come after experts behind a major surveillance study today claimed vaccines were ‘breaking the link’ between cases and deaths, saying Covid fatalities were falling as infections plateaued — a trend that was not seen during either the first or second wave.
ONS statistics also revealed the number of deaths linked to Covid fell by a quarter in the final week of March, after 719 were recorded compared to 963 in the previous seven-day spell.
And fatalities from all causes — including dementia and heart disease — remained below the five-year average for the third week in a row. Experts warned they would drop below the number expected because the pandemic had caused thousands of people to die early.
Scientists also said Covid vaccines now appeared to be breaking the link between someone catching the virus (black line) and hospitalisations (top red line) and deaths (bottom red line)
The ONS weekly report is compiled after statisticians look through mountains of death certificates to identify all those linked to the virus, meaning their estimates lag behind real counts by about two weeks.
The Department of Health, on the other hand, publishes daily estimates of Covid deaths based on figures submitted by hospitals and other healthcare providers — but these do not capture all fatalities linked to the virus.
When the ONS figures were broken down by age, they showed over-80s who are most at risk of hospitalisation and death if they catch the virus have seen fatalities drop by 92 per cent since the peak of the second wave.
For those aged 75 to 79, figures indicated deaths had dipped by 92 per cent since mid-January (from 1,110 to 77 Covid deaths) and among 70 to 74-year-olds they fell by 92 per cent (806 to 61).
Similarly sharp declines were also recorded among 65 to 69-year-olds where they fell by 89 per cent (521 to 56), among those aged 60 to 64 by 82 per cent dip (377 to 65) and those aged 55 to 59 by 87 per cent (257 to 33).
For 50 to 54-year-olds they fell by 70 per cent (134 to 39), for 45 to 49-year-olds by 84 per cent (90 to 14) and among 40 to 44-year-olds by 93 per cent (45 to 3).
The percentage drops in coronavirus deaths were not calculated for younger age groups because the risk they face from the virus is so low that very few fatalities have been recorded.
Reacting to the figures Professor Kevin McConway, a statistician at the Open University, said the figures showed everything was ‘moving in the right direction’.
‘The largest falls in deaths involving Covid were again in the older age groups, where more people will have been protected by vaccines from the most serious consequences of infection – but deaths involving Covid-19 in people under 50 were considerably down anyway, by 21 per cent compared to the previous week.’
He added: ‘The protection of older people by the vaccine means that a greater proportion of Covid-related deaths are in younger people.
‘In the latest week, ending 26 March, 98 of the 719 registered deaths were of people aged under 60, that’s 14 per cent of all the Covid-related deaths.
‘In the week ending 23 October last year, there were many more registered deaths involving Covid-19, 978 of them in all, but only 55 of those were in people under 60 (less than six per cent).’
Vaccines are being rolled out to all over-50s in England, but over-40s in Wales are now entitled to come forward for jabs.
In a major boost to the country’s vaccine drive, the Moderna Covid vaccine was dished out in the UK for the first time yesterday.
Britain has ordered 17million doses — enough for 8.5million people — but many of these are expected to be reserved for under-30s, after regulators yesterday said that age group should be offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca jab.
It comes after Imperial College London epidemiologists found while Covid infections appeared to have levelled off in early April, fatalities linked to the virus were still falling — which would not have been expected during the first or second wave.
They said this signalled how the successful vaccine roll-out may already be beating the virus.
They modelled their Covid infection rate estimates onto official tallies of deaths and hospitalisations linked to the virus to get the results, revealing that while there was a ‘clear association’ during the first wave but these appeared to have diverged from January – as the roll-out sped up.
Professor Steven Riley, an infectious disease modeller involved in the study, said: ‘From September onwards we get this really nice agreement between hospitalisations and deaths and underlying infections.
‘But the thing we are reporting today is if you look at this pattern from January onwards you’re seeing a pretty consistent divergence.
‘We think this is a signal of how the vaccination programme is breaking the previously strong link between the pattern of infections and the pattern of deaths and hospitalisations.
He added on Times Radio: ‘We’re getting fewer deaths now than before we started the vaccine campaign.
‘The lockdown is certainly contributing to the drop in infections that we’re also reporting today, that’s for sure, but it’s unlikely that that link between infections and deaths is being driven solely by the lockdown.’
