ALMOST half of the hospital deaths in England and Wales registered during the last week of 2020 involved coronavirus, new figures show.

There were 3,144 deaths registered in the week ending January 1 which mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

Of the 4,956 deaths registered which occurred in hospitals, 47.7 per cent involved coronavirus, up from 40.2 per cent the previous week.

And deaths involving Covid-19 in care homes accounted for more than a quarter (27.6 per cent) of all deaths in care homes registered during the seven-day period.

The ONS said that next week it will release a new dataset on the weekly deaths of care home residents.

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The figures show the number of registered coronavirus deaths is up eight per cent (232 deaths) from the previous week, while the number of overall deaths fell.

Of the 10,069 deaths registered, 31.2 per cent mentioned Covid-19 – the highest proportion of deaths involving the virus since the week ending May 1.

The ONS said the latest figures should be interpreted with caution as the period covered includes two bank holidays, meaning there is likely to have been a delay in some registrations.

A decrease between these weeks is usually observed because of the impact of the Christmas bank holidays.

Five regions of England recorded an increase in registered Covid-19 deaths in the week to January 1, the ONS said.

In the South East, 523 deaths were registered, up from 415 the previous week and the highest since the week to May 15.

London had 492 deaths, up from 299 and the highest since the week to May 1.

The North West had 359 deaths, up from 343; eastern England 325, up from 301; and the South West 158, up from 155.

The figures show that, up to the week ending January 1, 55,372 deaths occurred in hospital, 20,661 in care homes, 3,942 in private homes, 1,100 in hospices, 315 in other communal establishments and 279 elsewhere.

Nuffield Trust deputy director of research Sarah Scobie said numbers of Covid-19 deaths will continue to grow “for some time”.

She added: “The majority of these deaths are taking place in hospitals (68 per cent), but it is very concerning to see within this latest set of data that the number of Covid deaths in care homes are rising.

“This rise, coupled with an increase in the number of outbreaks of Covid in care homes, paints a worrying picture.

“Nobody wants to see a repeat of the first wave where the virus spread through care homes at pace. The vaccination of these most vulnerable people is now under way, but due to the time lag in gaining immunity and collecting this data, we will not see this impact for a few weeks yet.”

Any death involving Covid-19 is counted as an excess death because Covid-19 did not exist before 2020.

The end of life charity Marie Curie said a “silent crisis has been raging behind closed doors”, as families care alone for a dying loved one at home.

Chief executive Matthew Reed said: “While we must do all we can to protect the NHS and help it through this third wave of Covid-19, we must also reflect on what we can learn today about the people who have died prematurely in 2020 from other causes, and those who died at home – many more people died at home in 2020 but we did not see significantly increased resources to support those people.”