England’s coronavirus death toll was higher than Italy’s during peak of the outbreak, academics say
ENGLAND’S coronavirus death toll was higher than Italy’s during the peak of the outbreak, shock new analysis has revealed.
Figures show Italy’s outbreak peak took place on March 27 with almost 15,000 fatalities that week – a rise of 103 per cent compared to the average for the same period in previous years.
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In England, the peak occurred two weeks later with almost 20,000 deaths during the same time frame – a 109 per cent jump on the same week in previous years.
The data, compiled by academics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, includes extra deaths caused by cancer, strokes, or heart attacks which were neglected because of the pandemic.
Academics say it provides a true picture of the impact the killer bug has had on public health.
TRAGIC TOLL
Michel Coleman, a professor of epidemiology at LSHTM, said many of the extra deaths remained unaccounted for.
He told the : “Even if all the persons whose death certificate mentioned Covid-19 are counted, a quarter of the excess mortality in England and Wales is not explained.
“This occurs because some deaths caused by coronavirus occur among people who were not tested.
“Other deaths occur among people with pre-existing cardiac or respiratory conditions that were made worse by coronavirus, and some deaths from unrelated conditions may occur because the health system was overwhelmed.
“All these deaths form part of the overall public health impact of the epidemic, but they will not be revealed by restricting reports to deaths among people who were tested for Covid-19.
So, in a fast-moving pandemic, the cause of death on the death certificate is not a good way to assess the overall public health impact of the disease.
Professor Michel Coleman
“So, in a fast-moving pandemic, the cause of death on the death certificate is not a good way to assess the overall public health impact of the disease.”
It comes after Boris Johnson was accused of a coronavirus cover-up after the Government dropped the daily death comparisons with the rest of Europe from the press conference slides.
The UK death toll reached 34,636 yesterday with an increase of 170 on Saturday.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer spoke out after Downing Street stopped releasing the international death toll comparison.
The graphs had been a daily fixture of each No10 press conference, but have not been published recently.
'COVER UP?'
Sir Keir said last Wednesday: "For many weeks the Government has compared the UK number against other countries.
"I showed the Prime Minister his own slide, showing that the UK now has the highest death total in Europe and second highest in the world.
"A version of this slide has been shown at the Number 10 press conference every day since the 30th of March. That is seven weeks.
"Yesterday the Government stopped publishing the international comparisons and the slide has gone. Why?"
At the end of last month the graphs did suggest the UK has a higher coronavirus death rate than France, Italy and Spain.
But differences in how each country reports its data means the grim-looking comparison might not be quite as it appeared.
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Each country's population is different, and has a different way of recording the deaths, and countries are also at different points of the pandemic - which makes direct comparisons difficult.
It comes as new data revealed the coronavirus “R” infection rate has risen.
Experts fear that Covid-19's reproduction number has gone up from between 0.5 and 0.9 to 0.7 and 1 in some parts of the country.
But the government's top scientists cautioned that the small increase in the R value isn't thought to be linked to an easing of the lockdown due to a lag of about two to three weeks in data.
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