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LONDON (Reuters) – The UK has overtaken Italy to report the highest number of official deaths from the new coronavirus in Europe, figures released on Tuesday showed, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson about his response to the crisis. .
Weekly figures from the British National Bureau of National Statistics (ONS) added more than 7,000 deaths in England and Wales in the week to April 24, bringing the total for the UK to 32,313.
Based on the data so far, the United States alone, with a population nearly five times larger, has suffered more confirmed deaths from the virus than Britain.
Tuesday’s figures are based on mentions from the death certificate of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, including suspected cases.
While different ways of counting make comparisons with other countries difficult, the figure confirmed that Britain was among those most affected by a pandemic that has killed more than 250,000 worldwide.
“I don’t think we will get a real verdict on how countries have done it until the pandemic ends, and particularly until we have comprehensive international data on all-cause mortality,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told reporters. .
Opposition politicians said the figures showed that the government had been too slow to provide enough protective equipment to hospitals and to introduce massive tests.
“I would be surprised if, when we look back, we don’t think: yes, we could have done something different there,” said the government’s top scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, in response to lawmakers’ questions about the evidence.
In response to ONS figures, a Downing Street spokesman pointed to Johnson’s recent comments that Britain had passed the peak of the disease, but was in a “dangerous phase.”
He also quoted the advice of England medical director Chris Whitty: “Different countries are recording different things regarding deaths.”
Italy and Spain, the next most affected European countries, have smaller populations than Great Britain, further complicating comparisons.
“Drawing a graph with the United States at the top and the United Kingdom second is not helpful, but once you start to drill down by looking at the population, we should be asking serious questions about what is different,” said Carl Heneghan. , professor of evidence. medicine based at Oxford University.
“Why are six countries disproportionately affected?” Heneghan added, referring to a list dominated by Europe.
The daily cumulative death toll released by the British government, which records deaths from confirmed coronavirus cases only, rose to 29,427 on Tuesday, surpassing Italy’s daily toll for the first time.
Ministers do not like comparisons of the total number of deaths, saying that excess mortality, the number of deaths from all causes that exceed the average for the time of year, is more significant because it is internationally comparable.
EXCESS DEATH
But preliminary evidence of excess mortality suggests that Britain will also be one of the hardest hit by this measure.
ONS statistician Nick Stripe said excess deaths in the UK were approximately 42,000 higher than average at this time of year.
However, only about 80% of these excess deaths have been specifically related to COVID-19.
Weekly ONS data also showed that the peak in COVID-19 deaths was probably over, although the week to April 24 was the second deadliest since comparable records began in 1993.
The overall decline also masked an increasingly worse image in nursing homes.
The ONS said 7,911 deaths from all causes were recorded in nursing homes in the week ending April 24, three times more than a month earlier.
“These figures show that talking about ‘getting over the peak’ of this horrible virus is simply not valid for social care,” said Labor opposition lawmaker Liz Kendall.
A special Reuters report released Tuesday showed that even when the government promised to protect the elderly and vulnerable from the deadly virus, local councils said they did not have the tools to carry out the plan, and were often given only a few hours to implement new government instructions
According to Reuters calculations, the pandemic has resulted in at least 12,700 excess deaths in British nursing homes.
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Edition of Giles Elgood, Gareth Jones, Nick Macfie and Jonathan Oatis
