News and entertainment worth sharing – York and North Yorkshire

Here is the latest data on coronavirus deaths, testing and infection rates in York

A keep left sign near York Minster. Photograph: YorkMix
@ Health

York council has published its second weekly breakdown of Covid-19 data in the city today (Friday, 17 July).

It includes information on deaths in and out of hospital, testing and infection rates.

Data from the Office For National Statistics shows there were 166 coronavirus-related deaths among residents of York occurring up to 3 July and registered up to 11 July.

That is one more than the previous week.

Of these

  • 82 were in hospital (up one)
  • 71 in care homes (no change)
  • 9 at home (no change)
  • 3 in a hospice (no change)
  • and 1 in another ‘communal establishment’ (no change).

No ‘excess’ deaths: in week 27 (27 June to 3 July), 29 deaths occurred in York, which is the same as the average weekly number for 2014-18. The peak week for ‘excess’ deaths and for Covid deaths was week 18 (25 April to 1 May).

Local registrar data

While the ONS data is more comprehensive, because it include deaths of York residents which have been registered outside York, there is another set of figures from the local registrar.

Local registrar data is useful as it provides a breakdown by age and gender.

This showed 159 deaths where Covid-19 was mentioned up to 8 July – up one from last week. The latest death was a woman in a care home.

Of these 159 deaths:

  • the average age of the people who died was 82.4 (no change from last week)
  • the age range of those who died was 53-104 (no change)
  • 84 of the 159 were male (52.8%), slightly less than the national average (55.1%) (no change)
  • 68 people (42.8%) died in nursing/care homes (the national average is 30.9%) – (up by one from last week).
Advertisement

Altogether 13 people (8.2%) who normally resided in nursing/care homes in the York area, died in hospital.

The number of deaths per 100,000 of population in York is 78.82 which is lower than the national average of 85.55.

The age profile of those dying in York is slightly older than the national average.

YorkMix‘s daily updates show that there have been a total of 214 deaths in York NHS Trust hospitals, of which 134 were in York Hospital.

Infection rates and tests

The figures confirm the weekly rate for York of new Covid-19 cases under Pillar 1 and 2 was 3.3 per 100,000 population tested at 9 July. York was ranked 77th out of 150 local authorities – with 1 being the lowest rate.

York’s total number of confirmed coronavirus infections stood yesterday at 912 – giving a York infection rate of 434.5 cases per 100,000 people.

The England rate is 449.3 The Yorkshire & Humber rate is 554.3.

As at 14 July the latest seven-day positivity rate (Pillar 2 only) was 0.5% – seven positives out of 1,465 tests.

Public Health England compares the number of new cases over a ten-day period with the previous six weeks. From that it provides a red-amber-green rating to indicate if the trend of new cases is worsening. The latest rating for York – issued on 14 July – is green.