WORRYING new government graphs suggest the UK has a higher coronavirus death rate than France, Italy and Spain.
But differences in how each country reports its data means that the grim-looking comparison might not be quite as it appears.
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The US is much bigger than European countries and despite it suffering the most deaths overall, its outbreak doesn’t look as bad once population is taken into account and it comes below us all in the chart.
While these statistics make for grim reading for Brits, it is also vital to take into account the key differences in reporting data in different countries.
Spain, for example, does not currently record care home deaths and only counts cases where there have been a positive test for the virus, so its real death toll may be much higher.
The country fatality rate of 660 deaths per million makes it the highest overall death rate in Europe but it also has a significantly smaller population than the UK and Italy.
France, with a death rate of 413 per million, also has lags in reporting its care home deaths, which it began to do at the start of this month.
Today’s updated UK figures also only include people who have died after testing positive for coronavirus.
Many more people may have died of coronavirus without being tested, meaning the true figure for how many lives the pandemic has claimed in Britain may still be much higher.
This means that measuring the impact of the virus is complex despite the UK now having Europe’s second largest death toll.
At the government daily press briefing, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed that 823 of the new deaths were recorded in the last hours.
He added that the new overall tally includes an additional 3, 2000 deaths backdated to the start of the outbreak.
Until now, the daily reported figures have only included the number of people who have died in hospitals.
But Raab said today updated total does not “represent a sudden surge in deaths” – but instead helps us measure our toll against other countries’ tally.
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The government new graphic showing deaths ‘in all settings’ – hospitals, care homes and the wide community – is to give the “most comprehensive picture”.
Of the new figures, Dr Yvonne Doyle, Medical Director at PHE, said: “Every death from COVID – is a tragedy. Tracking the daily death count is vital to help us understand the impact of the disease.
“These more complete data will give us a fuller and more up to date picture of deaths in England and will inform the government’s approach as we continue to protect the public.
She added: “We are tracking much more alongside our European neighbors.”
UK coronavirus hospital death toll rises by including healthy – year-old
In total, , 413 people have now tested positive for covid – 27 in the UK – an increase of 4, on yesterday’s number.
Mr Raab assured Brits today: “We are coming through the peak, but we are not there yet.”
The Foreign Secretary stressed we must do what we can to avoid a second spike of the bug, adding that it would be “harmful to public health” and lead to more deaths as well as a second lockdown.
(1) Experts are now calling for resources to be moved from the mostly unused Nightingale hospitals to care homes : Credit: EPA
Dominic Raab warns that the UK’s hopes of lifting lockdown could be hit by second wave of infection similar to Germany
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