As of February 4, 2022, in the age group 75 to 84 years old COVID-19 was involved in the deaths of 32,780 males and 23,390 females in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, since the pandemic started over 72 thousand deaths in the UK among those aged 85 years and above involved COVID-19. For further information about the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Based on a comparison of coronavirus deaths in 210 countries relative to their population, Peru had the most losses to COVID-19 up until July 13, 2022. As of the same date, the virus had infected over 557.8 million people worldwide, and the number of deaths had totaled more than 6.3 million. Note, however, that COVID-19 test rates can vary per country. Additionally, big differences show up between countries when combining the number of deaths against confirmed COVID-19 cases. The source seemingly does not differentiate between "the Wuhan strain" (2019-nCOV) of COVID-19, "the Kent mutation" (B.1.1.7) that appeared in the UK in late 2020, the 2021 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) from India or the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) from South Africa.

The difficulties of death figures

This table aims to provide a complete picture on the topic, but it very much relies on data that has become more difficult to compare. As the coronavirus pandemic developed across the world, countries already used different methods to count fatalities, and they sometimes changed them during the course of the pandemic. On April 16, for example, the Chinese city of Wuhan added a 50 percent increase in their death figures to account for community deaths. These deaths occurred outside of hospitals and went unaccounted for so far. The state of New York did something similar two days before, revising their figures with 3,700 new deaths as they started to include “assumed” coronavirus victims. The United Kingdom started counting deaths in care homes and private households on April 29, adjusting their number with about 5,000 new deaths (which were corrected lowered again by the same amount on August 18). This makes an already difficult comparison even more difficult. Belgium, for example, counts suspected coronavirus deaths in their figures, whereas other countries have not done that (yet). This means two things. First, it could have a big impact on both current as well as future figures. On April 16 already, UK health experts stated that if their numbers were corrected for community deaths like in Wuhan, the UK number would change from 205 to “above 300”. This is exactly what happened two weeks later. Second, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which countries already have “revised” numbers (like Belgium, Wuhan or New York) and which ones do not. One work-around could be to look at (freely accessible) timelines that track the reported daily increase of deaths in certain countries. Several of these are available on our platform, such as for Belgium, Italy and Sweden. A sudden large increase might be an indicator that the domestic sources changed their methodology.

Where are these numbers coming from?

The numbers shown here were collected by Johns Hopkins University, a source that manually checks the data with domestic health authorities. For the majority of countries, this is from national authorities. In some cases, like China, the United States, Canada or Australia, city reports or other various state authorities were consulted. In this statistic, these separately reported numbers were put together. For more information or other freely accessible content, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Age-standardised mortality rates for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), non-COVID-19 deaths and all deaths by vaccination status, broken down by age group.

As of February 17, 2022, there had been approximately 139.5 thousand deaths due to COVID-19 recorded in England. When broken down by age, almost 37 percent of these deaths occurred in the age group 80 to 89 years, while a further fifth of deaths were recorded among over 90 year olds. For further information about the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

As of January 11, 2023, the highest number of deaths due to the coronavirus in Sweden was among individuals aged 80 to 90 years old. In this age group there were 9,124 deaths as a result of the virus. The overall Swedish death toll was 22,645 as of January 11, 2023.

The first case of coronavirus (COVID-19) in Sweden was confirmed on February 4, 2020. The number of cases has since risen to over 2.68 million, as of January 2023. For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

As of June 13, 2023, there have been almost 768 million cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) worldwide. The disease has impacted almost every country and territory in the world, with the United States confirming around 16 percent of all global cases.

COVID-19: An unprecedented crisis Health systems around the world were initially overwhelmed by the number of coronavirus cases, and even the richest and most prepared countries struggled. In the most vulnerable countries, millions of people lacked access to critical life-saving supplies, such as test kits, face masks, and respirators. However, several vaccines have been approved for use, and more than 13 billion vaccine doses had already been administered worldwide as of March 2023.

The coronavirus in the United Kingdom Over 202 thousand people have died from COVID-19 in the UK, which is the highest number in Europe. The tireless work of the National Health Service (NHS) has been applauded, but the country’s response to the crisis has drawn criticism. The UK was slow to start widespread testing, and the launch of a COVID-19 contact tracing app was delayed by months. However, the UK’s rapid vaccine rollout has been a success story, and around 53.7 million people had received at least one vaccine dose as of July 13, 2022.

Concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and physichochemical data on wastewater samples collected from six sites across England and Wales between March and July 2020. Also included are the number of COVID-19 positive tests and COVID-19 related deaths for the same period collated from publicly available records. COVID-19 data relate to the lower tier local authority that the wastewater treatment plant was located within. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/ce40e62a-21ae-45b9-ba5b-031639a504f7

Occupational registration data was linked to anonymised electronic health records maintained by the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank in a privacy-protecting trusted research environment. We examined records for all linked care workers from 1st March 2016 to 30th November 2021.

Domiciliary Care Workers (DCWs) are employed in both public and private sectors to support adults at home. The support they provide varies but often includes personal care, which demands close contact between care worker and the person being supported. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, people working across the care sectors in England and Wales have experienced higher rates of death involving COVID-19 infection. Social care workers, in both residential and domiciliary care settings, have been particularly badly affected, with rates of death involving COVID-19 approximately double that for health care workers.

We do not fully understand the full impact on domiciliary care worker mortality, how COVID-19 has affected worker health more broadly, and the risk factors which contribute to these. Existing evidence on deaths from the ONS relies on occupational classification. However, for many individuals reported as dying with some COVID-19 involvement, information on occupation is missing (18% and 40% missing for males and females respectively). The impact of COVID-19 on the health of domiciliary care workers (DCWs) is therefore likely to be considerable, including on COVID-19 infection itself, mental health, and respiratory illnesses. We aim to generate rapid high-quality evidence based on the views of care workers and by linking care workers' registration data to routine health data. We can use this information to inform public health interventions for safer working practice and additional support for care workers.

Our study will use a combination of research methods. We will use existing administrative data involving carer professional registration records as well as health care records. Our analysis of these data will be guided in part by qualitative interviews that we will conduct with domiciliary care workers in Wales. The interviews will address the experiences of care workers during the course of the pandemic.

Registration data for care workers in Wales will be securely transferred from the regulatory body, Social Care Wales (SCW) to the Secured Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank at Swansea University. These data will be combined with anonymised health records made available from the SAIL databank. Information which could be used to identify individual care workers will be removed in this process. We expect that this will create a research database of all domiciliary care workers in Wales, approximately 17,000 individuals. From this group we will also identify about 30 care workers to be approached via SCW to take part in a qualitative interview. The interview sample will be chosen so that it includes workers from a variety of backgrounds.

In our analysis, we will describe the socio-demographic characteristics of the group of care workers in the research database, for example, their average age. We will establish the number of care workers with both suspected and confirmed COVID-19 infection. Will explore how infection with COVID-19 has impacted on key health outcomes, including whether workers were admitted to hospital or died. We will also explore the health of care workers before and during COVID-19 pandemic. We will use the information gained from interviews with care workers to guide the way we analyse the health records of the care workers. Finally, we will examine how well the results from our analysis of care workers in Wales can be used inform what may be happening for workers in other countries in the UK.

To ensure that our findings will be of most use to those working in social care, we will work with an Implementation Reference Group. The group will include key stakeholders such as representatives from regulators from across the UK. Working with this group, we will provide rapid recommendations to drive public health initiatives for care worker safety. This may include changes in working practices and longer-term service planning to support care worker health needs.

According to several surveys carried out during March and April 2020, the share of British adults who believed that the government should encourage companies to allow their employees to work from home increased from 45 percent to 82 percent. While as of April 17, 40 percent of Brits believed the government should provide free masks to all people. As of April 19, 2020, the United Kingdom had 120,067 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country, with 15,464 reported deaths from the virus.

This qualitative sub-study was embedded in the broader data linkage OSCAR study which aimed to assess the health impact of working during the COVID-19 pandemic upon domiciliary care workers (DCWs) in Wales, UK. The qualitative study aimed to explore care worker experiences during the pandemic. We explored factors that may have varied the risk of exposure to COVID-19 as well as adverse health and wellbeing outcomes. Registered DCWs working in Wales were invited to take part in a semi-structured telephone interview. In total, 24 DCWs were interviewed between February and July 2021. Emergent themes were identified through a process of inductive analysis using thematic coding. Several emergent themes related to risk of exposure to COVID-19. General changes to the role of the DCW during the course of the pandemic were identified. Practical challenges for DCWs in the workplace were also reported. These included reports of staff shortages, clients and families not following safety procedures, initial shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), problems with standard use PPE, client difficulty with PPE and the management of rapid antigen testing. A general lack of government/employer preparation for a pandemic was described. This included the reorganisation of staff clients and services, sub-optimal information for many DCWs, COVID-19 training and the need for improved practical instruction and limited official standard risk assessments specifically for DCWs. Pressures to attend work and DCW’s perception of COVID-19 risk and vaccination were reported.

Domiciliary Care Workers (DCWs) are employed in both public and private sectors to support adults at home. The support they provide varies but often includes personal care, which demands close contact between care worker and the person being supported. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, people working across the care sectors in England and Wales have experienced higher rates of death involving COVID-19 infection. Social care workers, in both residential and domiciliary care settings, have been particularly badly affected, with rates of death involving COVID-19 approximately double that for health care workers.

We do not fully understand the full impact on domiciliary care worker mortality, how COVID-19 has affected worker health more broadly, and the risk factors which contribute to these. Existing evidence on deaths from the ONS relies on occupational classification. However, for many individuals reported as dying with some COVID-19 involvement, information on occupation is missing (18% and 40% missing for males and females respectively). The impact of COVID-19 on the health of domiciliary care workers (DCWs) is therefore likely to be considerable, including on COVID-19 infection itself, mental health, and respiratory illnesses. We aim to generate rapid high-quality evidence based on the views of care workers and by linking care workers' registration data to routine health data. We can use this information to inform public health interventions for safer working practice and additional support for care workers.

Our study will use a combination of research methods. We will use existing administrative data involving carer professional registration records as well as health care records. Our analysis of these data will be guided in part by qualitative interviews that we will conduct with domiciliary care workers in Wales. The interviews will address the experiences of care workers during the course of the pandemic.

Registration data for care workers in Wales will be securely transferred from the regulatory body, Social Care Wales (SCW) to the Secured Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank at Swansea University. These data will be combined with anonymised health records made available from the SAIL databank. Information which could be used to identify individual care workers will be removed in this process. We expect that this will create a research database of all domiciliary care workers in Wales, approximately 17,000 individuals. From this group we will also identify about 30 care workers to be approached via SCW to take part in a qualitative interview. The interview sample will be chosen so that it includes workers from a variety of backgrounds.

In our analysis, we will describe the socio-demographic characteristics of the group of care workers in the research database, for example, their average age. We will establish the number of care workers with both suspected and confirmed COVID-19 infection. Will explore how infection with COVID-19 has impacted on key health outcomes, including whether workers were admitted to hospital or died. We will also explore the health of care workers before and during COVID-19 pandemic. We will use the information gained from interviews with care workers to guide the way we analyse the health records of the care workers. Finally, we will examine how well the results from our analysis of care workers in...

The number of knife or sharp instrument offences recorded by the police in London rose to approximately 15,016 in 2023/24, compared with 12,786 in the previous year. This was the highest number of knife crime offences reported in London since 2019/20, when there were 15,928 offences. Between 2015/16 and 2019/20, knife crime in London increased yearly, with a particularly large increase occurring between 2016/16 and 2017/18. A wider trend The increase in knife crime witnessed in London has occurred alongside a general increase in overall crime throughout England and Wales. In 2022/23, there were approximately 6.74 million crime offences across England and Wales, compared with just over four million ten years earlier. During a similar time period, the number of knife homicides also increased, and reached 282 in 2021/22, compared with 186 in 2014/15. Due to strict gun laws in the United Kingdom, firearms are rarely used to commit homicides, with knives or other sharp instruments being used in over 41.4 percent of homicides in 2022/23. Acid and moped attacks While knife crime in London has certainly been given a lot of attention by the British media, the increase in acid and moped attacks during the same time period also generated many headlines. In 2017, for example, there were 471 acid attacks recorded by the Metropolitan Police, compared with just 51 in 2007. Moped crime also reached high levels in 2017, with both types of crime declining to much lower levels by the early 2020s. Although overall crime in London continued to rise until 2019/20, this fell back during the COVID-19 pandemic, but by 2023/24, the number of crimes committed in the capital had exceeded pre-pandemic levels.