Covid inquiry: Wales had highest Covid deaths during UK’s second wave

Prof
Sir Ian Diamond, chief executive of the UK Statistics Authority, took the inquiry through the mortality figures involving Covid in Wales –
especially how the second wave hit Wales particularly hard.

He said there was no statistical difference between Wales and England on
age-standardised mortality, but there was when compared with Scotland and
Northern Ireland – with Wales being higher.

England
had the higher percentage of excess expected deaths (11.9%) compared to Wales
(9.2%) in the pandemic period up to February 2022.

In
the second wave, mortality was higher in Wales than the other UK nations. There
were 3,187 excess deaths in the second wave in Wales, and 4,429 deaths involving
Covid, compared to 2,251 excess deaths in the first wave and 2,109 deaths
involving Covid.

Prof
Diamond said there was a “very strong peak of deaths” in April 20202, largely
driven by Covid.

“There
was also a very high peak in the autumn and early part of 2021 – again that was
largely drive by Covid,” he said, adding that Covid deaths later began to “greatly”
decrease due to better treatment as well as vaccines.