England and Wales recorded more deaths last year during the coronavirus pandemic than at anytime since the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, official data shows.
Separate Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed there were also more deaths than births in Britain in 2020 for the first time since the 1970s.
There were a total of 607,922 deaths in England and Wales last year, of which 72,950 (12 per cent) were caused by Covid. More may have died indirectly from the virus, including tens of thousands who may have struggled to get healthcare in lockdown.
It is the highest death toll since 1918 when 611,861 people died, including 228,000 directly from the H1N1 flu strain that sparked the last global pandemic.
Population growth means that the death rate in 2020 was only at its highest since 2003, but statisticians said there was a 14.5 per cent jump in mortality compared to 2019, something which hasn't happened since the Blitz.
Professor Kevin McConway, emeritus professor in applied statistics at the Open University, told MailOnline: 'The jump in the number of registered deaths in 2020 compared to 2019 is quite remarkable.
'This isn’t the highest year-on-year increase in deaths ever, but it’s very high. That’s really exceptional - up to 2019 it hadn’t changed by more than 10 per cent in a single year, up or down, since 1948.'
'Since the star of the last century, there have only been three previous years when deaths in England and Wales were more than 10 per cent higher than the year before — 1918, because of the influenza pandemic, with deaths 22 per cent up on 1917, 1929 when there was another fairly major flu epidemic and also, probably increases in deaths because of the great economic depression and 1940, at least to some extent due to deaths in the Blitz, with deaths 16 per cent up on 1939.
'You might expect greater increase in the time of world wars, but these counts don’t include deaths of armed forces overseas.'
Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures released today showed there were more deaths than births in the UK in 2020 for the first time since 1976. It was only the second time this happened since the start of the 20th century
England and Wales recorded more deaths last year than anytime since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 because of Covid, the ONS said
Overall death rates last year were highest in the North East, which saw 1,399 per 100,000 men die and 1,045 per 100,000 women die over the year.
They were followed by the North West (1,392 and 1,024), Yorkshire and the Humber (1358 and 968) and East Midlands (1,277 and 921).
The North West recording the most fatalities caused by Covid, ONS data shows
Office for National Statistics (ONS) data released today showed Covid death rates were highest in the North West last year.
Some 178 per 100,000 people died with Covid in the region.
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