(Bloomberg) -- Excess deaths in England and Wales rose to the highest since May in the week through Nov. 20, as fatalities linked to the coronavirus continued to climb.
The total number of deaths registered was 20.8% above the five-year average, the Office of National Statistics said Tuesday. Without the 2,697 Covid deaths in the period -- accounting for 21.5% of all fatalities -- the number of deaths would have been below the average.
While the figures cover the second full week of England’s national lockdown, they are a lagging indicator of the state of the pandemic. New infections have started to decline, and the country is set to enter a new, tiered system of restrictions later this week.
