People from ethnic minority backgrounds are no longer statistically more likely to die from Covid-19, the latest analysis from the Office for National Statistics shows.
Since January 2022, when Omicron became the dominant variant of Covid, there has been an ongoing fall in the rate of deaths across most ethnic groups, the ONS said.
Covid-19 mortality rates decreased for males and females from the Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean, Pakistani and other ethnic groups, and females in the Black African group, when compared with the Delta period the analysis found.
By contrast there was a small increase in Covid-19 mortality for white British men and women, the ONS said.
Unlike all other points in the pandemic there is no longer any evidence of ethnic minority groups having a significantly higher Covid-19 mortality rate compared with white British people.
In fact, men with Black African, Black Caribbean, Chinese and other ethnic backgrounds had lower mortality rates involving Covid-19 than white British individuals, the data showed.
For religion a similar pattern has been seen and Muslim groups, who had previously experienced the highest rates of Covid-19 deaths, saw notable decreases in the most recent period compared with earlier in the pandemic.
In fact, Omicron was the first time where Muslim men and women did not have the highest mortality rates, the ONS said.
Vahé Nafilyan, senior statistician for the data and analysis for social care and health division at the ONS, said: ‘Analysis for the latest period shows that for all ethnic groups, rates of deaths involving Covid-19 are substantially lower compared to earlier in the pandemic.
‘Furthermore, patterns in mortality rates between ethnic groups have changed; for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, ethnic minority groups no longer have a significantly higher Covid-19 mortality rate compared to the white British group.
‘This is reflected in patterns of all-cause mortality, which in the latest period suggest a return to patterns observed prior to the pandemic (rates then were highest for the white and mixed groups).
‘This is notable because during the pandemic there were periods where all-cause mortality rates were higher for Bangladeshi and Pakistani males and females, Black Caribbean males and females in the mixed ethnic group compared with the white British group.’
READERS' COMMENTS [3]
Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles
Something along the lines of : We are not a racist country. Ha ha ha!
On the subject of Covid, Cochrane has just published;
Do physical measures such as hand-washing or wearing masks stop or slow down the spread of respiratory viruses?
Published: 30 January 2023. Authors: Jefferson T, Dooley L, et Al.
“The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks”.
The widespread enforcement of mask wearing was not science based.
Research on effective maskwearing (not just ‘face-coverings or surgical masks) on London Covid wards has already shown a reduction in infection, for proper masks, not the rubbish ones the government misled people to wear.
And the news about racial bias is not really good news, the higher initial death rates should not have been allowed to happen to start with, that is an extreme blot on our copybook anyway, and changes in infectivit and mortality now do not make up for our stupidity as a Nation back in 2020.