All Westmeath deaths due to Covid were among over-35s

No-one under the age of 35 from Westmeath died of Covid in the two years between March 2020 and February 2020.

In total, the disease claimed 82 lives of Westmeath residents during that period and all bar 13 of those were aged 65 or over, according to figures released today, Thursday, by the Central Statistics Office.

The CSO’s Frontier Series Output focuses specifically on deaths due to COVID-19. A death due to COVID-19 differs from a death with COVID-19 in that COVID-19 is identified as the underlying cause of death in the former but not in the latter.

In deaths between March 2020 and February 2022, COVID-19 was identified as the underlying cause of death in 5,384 cases.

A breakdown of the figures for Westmeath reveals that two of those who died of Covid were aged 35-44; three people aged 45-54 died and eight people aged between 55 and 64 died.

Those aged 85 and over accounted for 28 of the Westmeath deaths; 25 of those who died were aged between 75 and 84 and there were 16 deaths among the 65-74 year old cohort.

Analysis of the place of death shows that nationally, 29% of all deaths occurred in nursing homes, and 59% of the remaining deaths occurred in general and orthopaedic hospitals.

The figures show that nationally, persons aged 65 and over accounted for 91% of Ireland’s COVID-19 deaths – in Westmeath that figure was 84%.

Commenting on the release, Gerard Doolan, Statistician in the Vital Statistics Division, said County Dublin recorded the highest number of COVID-19 deaths with 1,883 lives lost between March 2020 and February 2022. County Dublin accounted for 35% of all such deaths nationally, while Leitrim had the lowest number of all such deaths at 26 or 0.5%.

The CSO explains that its Frontier Series Output presents the results of an analysis of deaths due to COVID-19 which occurred in Ireland between 01 March 2020 and 28 February 2022 and which were registered with the General Register Office (GRO) and subsequently notified to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) by 31 May 2022.

The analysis focuses on deaths where COVID-19 was found to have been the underlying cause of death (UCOD). A death certificate may list multiple causes of death, based on which the UCOD is identified by applying specific guidelines from the World Health Organization.