Coronavirus: 2020 sees largest annual increase in deaths since WW2

Excess fatalities in the UK rose to levels not seen since wartime

Patient transport services move an elderly patient from hospital to a care home.
(Image credit: Leon Neal/Pool/Getty Images)

Excess deaths in England and Wales rose by 15% in 2020, marking the largest year-on-year increase since the Second World War.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that there were 608,002 deaths registered in England and Wales last year, up from 530,841 in 2019. It marks the highest total number of deaths since 1918, when there were 611,861.

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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.