UK death toll far higher than reported by govt, reveals data

‘Hospital death toll that you are seeing is a composite of things that have been trickling in over a period of time. It is not an exact number and does not include the numbers dying in places such as nursing homes’

The United Kingdom’s true death toll from the novel coronavirus far exceeds estimates previously published by the government, according to broader official data that include deaths in the community such as in nursing homes.

Even before the new figures, the official British death toll was the fifth-highest globally and a senior scientific adviser to the government has said the country risks becoming the worst-hit in Europe.

The Office for National Statistics said 5,979 people in England had died by April 3 with COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, mentioned on their death certificates — 15% higher than numbers published by the health service.

“I am not remotely surprised there would be an undercounting,” Bill Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health, told reporters.

“The UK hospital death toll that you are seeing — the one on the news each night — is a composite of things that have been trickling in over a period of time. It is not an exact number and does not include the numbers dying in places such as nursing homes.”