Hamed Chapman

The customs and convention of Muslims during the blessed month of Ramadan do not have any impact on the mortality rate of the Covid pandemic in the UK, according to a study carried out by a group of researchers.

Practices associated with the fasting month “did not have detrimental effects on Covid-19 deaths,” the findings of five researchers reported in the latest edition of the Journal of International Health. the study was based upon an analysis of official data compiled from sets of public figures available from the Office for National Statistics prior, during and after Ramadan last year.

For comparison figures were taken from 15 of the most Muslim populated local authority areas between April and May last year that were also among the most deprived in the country and similarly from deprived with low Muslim populations during the same period.

Leading up to Ramadan, when up to three million Muslims were expected to fast in the UK and many of the 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide, there was concern with its calorific and water restriction the observation either exacerbate or predispose people to Covid-19 and cause harm.

Aggregated Covid-19 deaths were plotted in rates per 100,000 population for the two groups for weeks 10 through to 30 of 2020 both as raw death rates as well as indirectly age-standardised death rates. Ramadan itself began in week 17 and ended in week 21 of 2020. As the spike in mortalities overall were falling, the results show that deaths were also falling steadily in both Muslim areas and control areas over the Ramadan period and as the trend continued in both sets it suggested that there was no lagged detrimental effect of fasting.

Although age adjusted death rates were higher than raw death rates in the Muslim areas due to their younger than average populations, if anything the indications were that the fall if anything was faster in the Muslim areas than the control areas over Ramadan albeit from a higher initial peak level.