A graph showing that deaths in England and Wales remained at normal levels by 2020 has spread online. However, the information is incorrect.
Reports underestimating the severity of the number of deaths during the pandemic have been shared online over the past year, and several have used a table of figures to compare the total deaths from 2020 to previous years (here, here, here).
According to a specific picture, mortality rates for all reasons are shown by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) between 1990 and 2020, and it appears that deaths registered in England and Wales in 2020 were not significantly higher than previous years dating back to 1990 not. (here).
A Facebook page describing itself as an ‘independent news publisher’ included a reference to the table on February 8, 2021 in a video viewed 21,000 times during publication (here). The speaker in the video claims to have sent the graph through a ‘retired GP’ (35:30) and says: ‘What I’m trying to say is if you look through the years 1990 to 2020, there is no major change in the annual death statistics, and yet the government wants us to believe that we are in a pandemic. ”(36:10)
The graph was shared on Facebook again after the broadcast, with social media users writing captions such as: “OUR all-cause mortality (excess deaths) proves that there is no pandemic here” (bit.ly/3a2RkEm).
Although the table is mostly accurate in the version of US mortality rates between 1990 and 2019, the most important entry for 2020 is incorrect. According to the table, 561,529 people died according to US estimates in 2020.
Some Twitter users have expressed confusion about the source of this number (here and here), and Reuters Fact Check could not find this figure in any official ONS documents.
The closest information available was the estimated total deaths published in week 49, which predicted an annual total of 561,967 deaths by December 4 (select the scheduled update on December 22, 2020, estimated total deaths in 2020). Other close figures were the 554,919 deaths registered on 27 November (here, select the scheduled update 15 December 2020, weekly figures 2020) and the 567 222 total registered deaths by 4 December (here, select the scheduled update 22 December 2020, weekly figures 2020).
However, genuine ONS data published on 5 February 2021 showed that 608 002 deaths were recorded in 2020. This is higher than any other annual death rate in the graph with years going back to 1990. The ONS says that this figure is still provisional and will be finalized later in the year (here). Full details of annual mortality rates since 1838 are published here by the ONS.
Sarah Caul, head of death analysis at the ONS, wrote in January 2021: “2020 was an unprecedented year in many ways, including the number of deaths; the total number of deaths registered in 2020 was 75 925 higher than we would expect if we looked at the five-year average between 2015 and 2019. ”(here).
Reuters Fact Check has downplayed repeated allegations that the death toll in 2020 was normal here, here and here.
VERDICT
Untrue. US data do not show that deaths in England and Wales in 2020 remained at normal levels.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.