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.
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.’
