THERE was just one Coronavirus-linked death registered in the North of Ireland last week, official figures show.
That is six fewer than the previous week, which showed a rise in the weekly number of deaths in NI for the first time since mid-June.
The number of people who have died in the Derry City and Strabane District Council area since the pandemic erupted in March remains at 29.
The NI Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) releases weekly statistics.
It said the virus was mentioned on the death certificates of 855 people in the North of Ireland in total by July 31.
The Department of Health’s positive-test-based figure for the same date was 556 – almost 300 fewer.
Nisra said there have been 449 deaths in hospital (52.5%).
Eighty of those people were normally resident in care homes – a figure unchanged since last week.
Taking that figure and the 349 who died in care homes, it means care home residents account for half of all Covid-19-related deaths in NI.
Nisra said no deaths related to COVID-19 occurred in care homes in the week up to last Friday.
Eight people have died in hospices (0.9%) and 49 at residential addresses or other locations (5.7%), both figures unchanged.
People aged 75 and over account for 80% of all COVID-19-related deaths.
The provisional number of all deaths between Friday 24 and Friday 31 July was 273 – 34 fewer than in the previous week (307) and nine fewer than the five-year average (282).
That five-year death rate is used to compare the number of weekly deaths that would normally be recorded at this time of year.
Nisra also recorded the number of “excess deaths” registered in the past 18 weeks as 1,031.
Its measure captures all deaths linked to Coronavirus – those involving confirmed infections which feature in the health department’s daily figures, as well as the suspected cases in which COVID-19 is mentioned on the death certificate.
Tags: