There have been almost 100,000 excess cardiovascular deaths since the start of the pandemic, the British Heart Foundation has said, as it calls on the government to take control of the NHS crisis.
More than 500 people have died of cardiovascular disease each week above and beyond what would have been expected since March 2020. While in the first two years of the pandemic almost all could be explained by Covid-19 infections, the charity said that they appear increasingly to be associated with pressures on the health service.
In the third year of the pandemic, there were 27,000 excess cardiovascular deaths. There were just 7,800 Covid-19 deaths that also mentioned cardiovascular disease as an underlying cause.
Dr Charmaine Griffiths, chief executive of the British
