As more people "died suddenly", what do the figures say?

With "died suddenly" trending on social media, and affecting the young, the old, the fit and the healthy, we take a look at what the official government website says about deaths in England and Wales over the last few weeks.

Obviously there's no mention of any possible cause for these excess deaths...

In the week ending 13 January 2023 (Week 2), 17,381 deaths were registered in England and Wales; 922 of these deaths mentioned "novel coronavirus (COVID-19)", accounting for 5.3% of all deaths.

This is an increase in all deaths compared with the week ending 6 January 2023 (Week 1), when the number of all-cause deaths registered was 14,983; COVID-19 accounted for 739 of these deaths (4.9%).

Of the 922 deaths involving COVID-19 in Week 2, 70.9% (654 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death, which was a marginally lower proportion when compared with Week 1 (72.0%).

The number of deaths was above the five-year average in private homes (31.5% above, 1,082 excess deaths), hospitals (11.1% above, 794 excess deaths), care homes (27.6% above; 855 excess deaths) and other settings (12.0% above, 106 excess deaths) in Week 2 in England and Wales.

The number of deaths registered in the UK in the week ending 13 January 2023 (Week 2) was 19,916, which was 20.4% above the five-year average (3,377 excess deaths); of these deaths, 1,059 involved COVID-19.