Number of care home deaths still increasing, new figures show

The latest figures showing the breakdown between deaths due to the virus in hospitals, care homes and other settings such as hospices were published by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) this morning.

Two sets of statistics on the impact of the coronavirus in Northern Ireland are published regularly — daily updates by the Public Health Agency (PHA) and weekly updates by NISRA.

The PHA figures are drawn from reports by health trusts and consist largely of information from hospitals.

The NISRA figures are taken from death certificates and, while not as up-to-date as the daily updates from the PHA, paint a much more complete and detailed picture of the devastation wrought by the virus in Northern Ireland.

The NISRA statistics published this morning show that in the week ending May 1, there were 39 deaths in hospital, one in a hospice and four at home. But in care homes, 71 people lost their lives to the virus — 62% of all coronavirus deaths that week.

The gap between the number of deaths in care homes and the number of deaths in hospitals appears to be growing.

In the previous week, ending April 24, there were 63 deaths in care homes, 40 in hospital and six at home meaning care homes accounted for 58% of the total.

Overall, there have been 516 deaths due to coronavirus up to May 1 — 253 (49.0%) of which took place in hospital, 232 (45.0%) in care homes, four (0.8%) in hospices and 27 (5.2%) at residential addresses or other locations.

The 236 deaths in care homes and hospices involved 66 separate establishments.

The comparative number of deaths reported daily by the Department of Health to 1st May was 383.