"Every death from this dreadful disease is a personal tragedy and our thoughts go out to those family and friends in mourning."
Responding to the latest ONS figures on coronavirus deaths, which show that deaths involving COVID-19 as a percentage of all deaths in care homes decreased to 32.5 per cent in the week to 22 May, compared with 37.2 per cent in the previous week, Cllr Ian Hudspeth, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, said:
“Every death from this dreadful disease is a personal tragedy and our thoughts go out to those family and friends in mourning.
“Social care is on the frontline in the fight against coronavirus. We are thankfully seeing a week-on-week decline in the number of care home deaths attributable to COVID-19, but worryingly the total number of excess deaths in care homes is still higher than the five-year average, which means our elderly and most vulnerable continue to be at risk.
“Councils are doing all they can to protect those in care homes, as well as those receiving care in their own homes. Every council in England has prepared plans on how to support all care homes in their areas to control and prevent future infection outbreaks, working alongside the NHS locally and with Public Health England.
“These plans, alongside greater information sharing with councils on where outbreaks are happening more widely as part of the test and trace programme, will help in our shared national effort to finally defeat this disease.”