Covid was not the underlying cause of death in nearly a quarter of virus-related fatalities last week, official figures suggest.
The most up-to-date Office for National Statistics figures showed there were 922 deaths registered in England and Wales mentioned coronavirus on the death certificate in the week to January 7. Of them, Covid was not ruled to be the primary reason for the death in 210 cases, or 23 per cent — although it may have been a contributing factor.
For comparison, the share of deaths not primarily due to the virus stood at around 16 per cent when Omicron first arrived in the UK.
With the Alpha wave last January — before the country embarked on its historic vaccination drive — the proportion was about 10 per cent.
The rise of the milder Omicron variant has led to a similar pattern emerging in hospitals, where almost half of Covid inpatients are not primarily in hospital for the virus — compared to about 25 per cent with Delta.
Critics have warned that the rise in so-called 'incidental' cases may be skewing the Government's daily coronavirus statistics.
Covid deaths have been rising slowly for a few weeks and are now hovering at around 200 a day in England on average.
Hospitalisations have flattened with 1,900 being admitted in England on January 12, the latest available, which was barely a change in a week.
And cases are plummeting as the disconnect between infections and severe illness leads to growing optimism that the worst of the Covid pandemic is over.
Amid mounting promising statistics Boris Johnson is said to be drawing up plans to ditch all Covid laws from as early as March as the under-fire PM tries to win over his backbenchers.
Ministers are already planning to ditch Plan B curbs brought in last month to fight the highly-transmissible variant, with Covid passports and WFH guidance expected to be scrapped later this month.
The above figure shows the proportion of Covid deaths are people who have died from the disease (red) to those who have died with the disease (blue). It shows the proportion dying with the disease is now rising
The above graph shows the proportion of Covid patients that were primarily admitted with the disease in London (yellow) and across England (red). It reveals that these levels are falling highlighting how the Omicron variant is less severe
Pictured above are the number of Covid patients in hospital (pink) and the numbers who were primarily admitted with Covid (blue) across England up to January 11
The weekly ONS report includes all deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate, and then breaks them down into cases where it
