According to a message on social media, only 26 patients on a COVID-19 died alone in a Welsh Health Council. However, these statistics were out of context in posts that used it to further argue that the British pandemic response was disproportionate.
The report (here) claims that between 26 March and 31 December there were only 26 deaths due to COVID-19 in the Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board Wales.
“Any lost life is horrible, but this figure sounds more like the real figure rather than those who died after testing positive on COVID 19,” the report writes.
The death status stems from a legitimate request for freedom of information (FOI), which asked the board how many of its patients died ‘only from COVID-19’.
The council’s response said there were 26 deaths in three acute hospitals in the area where ‘COVID-19 was given as the sole cause of death’, ie no contributing factors’ (here).
However, these figures were taken out of context by the post.
Dr Chris Stockport, executive director of primary and community care at the health council of Betsi Cadwaladr University, told Reuters in an email that the statistics were not representative of how many people died as a result of COVID-19.
‘It is important to note that the number of people with COVID-19 as the only entry on their death certificates is small, and does not represent the number of people whose cause of death is a direct result of COVID-19, which is significant higher, ”he said.
Although certain medical conditions increase the risk of death after someone has contracted COVID-19, that does not mean that these people would have died anyway.
For many people with underlying health conditions, COVID-19 was ultimately the catalyst for their death.
Furthermore, the FOI also has a limited scope because it only reports deaths from its three main acute hospitals.
As deaths are not recorded electronically in community hospitals, deaths in these areas were not included in the FOI due to administrative expenses, the council said in its response.
VERDICT
Missing context. The figure obtained by the FOI request does not represent the number of people who died as a result of COVID-19.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.