Covid in Wales: hospital patient numbers falling

The number of hospital patients with Covid has fallen in Wales, compared to this time a week ago.

Average daily admissions are the lowest since the start of September, and Monday saw the fewest admissions since 22 August.

Hospital patient numbers, published by Digital Health and Care Wales, fluctuate day by day.

But the seven-day average number of hospital patients with confirmed Covid has fallen by 9% in a week.

Meanwhile Office for National Statistics figures showed there were 66 weekly deaths involving Covid - one more than the previous week.

Although this is the highest weekly figure since early March, the figures remain well below the numbers seen last winter during the second wave of the pandemic, when Covid case numbers were similar.

Case rates remain high in Wales, but 35% of positive tests still involve the 10 to 19 age group.

Due to the impact of the vaccine programme, the case numbers in this wave have not translated into as many hospital admissions.

The total number of deaths involving Covid at the same point in the second wave of the pandemic was more than six times higher than it is now.

Covid hospital admissions are at an average of 33 a day, down on a week ago when they stood at 39 a day, and the lowest since the start of September.

The daily figure on Monday was 17 patients being admitted, the lowest number since 22 August.

The average is currently 3% of all admissions. It was nearly four times as many at the same point of the second wave.

There were 461 patients with confirmed Covid on Monday, including 114 in beds in Cwm Taf Morgannwg and 90 in Betsi Cadwaladr.

Although up for two successive days, this was down from 512 patients the week before. The average number of confirmed Covid-19 patients was 452 on 27 September.

This compared to 499 a week ago, a 9% fall across Wales, indicating a slow-down. Numbers of confirmed Covid patients in hospital beds were also more than three times the number at the same point in the second wave.

Including suspected Covid and recovering patients, the number across Wales stands at 640, according to Digital Health and Care Wales. That is 7.7% of all patients in hospital and a fall on a week ago.

There were 47 patients in critical care/ventilation with Covid - with similar numbers for nearly a month. These included 11 patients in Hywel Dda, where non-Covid patients in critical care outnumber Covid patients again.

There were 20 deaths in the Betsi Cadwaladr health board area in the week ending 17 September, with 17 occurring in hospital and two in people's own homes and one in a care home.

There were 11 deaths in the Hywel Dda area - its highest weekly total since early March - and 10 deaths in Swansea Bay, also its highest for six months, and 10 in Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board.

Four counties had no Covid deaths in the last week: Blaenau Gwent, Cardiff, Ceredigion and Torfaen. Conwy and Swansea had the most, nine deaths, and there were seven also in Carmarthenshire and Rhondda Cynon Taf.

So-called excess deaths, which compare all registered deaths with previous years, were above average for a ninth week in succession. They had been below average for 18 of the previous 24 weeks. There were 91 deaths above the five-year average in the latest week.

Looking at the number of deaths we would normally expect to see at this point in a typical year is seen as a reliable measure of the pandemic.

The number of deaths from all causes in Wales rose to 668 in the week ending 17 September, with 9.9% mentioning Covid on the death certificate.

Deaths were also above average in all UK nations for the week, while deaths involving Covid fell in five out of the nine English regions, with the largest decrease in south-west England.

Deaths in private homes in England and Wales were 34.3% above the five-year average in the latest week.

The daily deaths figures reported to Public Health Wales (which do not always correspond to the actual day a person died on and are adjusted later by the ONS) show six reported on Tuesday.

There were 32 deaths reported in the week to Sunday 26 September, an average of five a day. Deaths were nine to 10 times higher at this stage of the second wave.

When looking across the course of the pandemic so far, there have been 55,698 deaths from all causes in Wales, with 8,180 (14.7%) mentioning Covid-19 on the death certificate registered up to 17 September. This was 5,452 deaths above the five-year average.

When deaths registered in the following days are counted, there have been a total of 8,210 deaths.

Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) has seen the most deaths - 921 during the pandemic and it also has the seventh highest mortality rate across England and Wales.

So far in the third wave of the pandemic, there has been 305 deaths involving Covid in Wales; after the same period in the second wave, there had been 1,993 deaths, according to ONS figures.

Wales' case rate has risen to 650.6 cases per 100,000. The daily case average is 2,930 - up from 2,379 a week ago.

However the doubling time (the length of time it takes for the number of cases to double) has risen to 34 days, signs of a slowing down.

Positive tests from the last two days show 55% are among under 30s and 35% aged between 10 and 19 - so still a notable proportion linked to school-age children.

The positivity rate is 15.4% - it has been under 16 for over a week.

The highest case rate is still in Neath Port Talbot (927.3 cases per 100,000) but that has fallen slightly, while there have been rises in RCT and Merthyr.

Locally, there are now 47 communities with hotspots above 1,000.