Almost 20,000 care home residents have died with coronavirus, according to latest ONS figures

Almost 20,000 care home residents have died with coronavirus, new figures from the Office for National Statistics show.

A total of 19,394 deaths that occurred between March 2 and June 12 had Covid-19 mentioned on the death certificate, whether as an underlying cause or not.

Of these, 16,305 (84 per cent) were classified as "confirmed" Covid-19 and 3,089 (16 per cent) were classified as "suspected" Covid-19.

The figures refer to all deaths of care home residents, whether the death occurred inside a care home or in another setting, such as a hospital.

It comes as Boris Johnson said the Government will "go over and look at" whether an earlier lockdown could have prevented some deaths in care homes.

The Prime Minister told LBC: “We will have to go back and look at the whole issue of what happened in care homes in great, great detail.

"I think what happened was absolutely tragic, there’s no question that we saw far too many lives lost in care homes and we mourn for everyone."

Mr Johnson added that he disputed claims that people were pushed into care homes from the NHS to make space in hospitals, saying that numbers of people going into care homes fell by 40% from January to March.

"What we certainly wanted to do to was to ensure we had the space in the NHS, that’s absolutely right, but what I’m told is every decision to move people out of the beds in the NHS was taken on a clinical basis and not in any way intended to endanger the care homes,” he said.

"Whether an earlier lockdown would have made the crucial difference is something that really we will have to go over and look at."

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