Coronavirus death toll in the UK may have ALREADY hit 41,000 when non-hospital victims are counted, analysis claims
- Department of Health statistics put the UK’s current death toll at 17,337
- The NHS backdates deaths so many that have happened are not yet announced
- Detailed statistics are released once a week but are always 10 days behind
- It will take weeks for records of non-hospital deaths and backdating to catch up
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
The coronavirus outbreak in the UK may have killed more than 41,000 people already when non-hospital deaths are included.
Office for National Statistics data, which includes victims who have died at home or in nursing homes, puts the total fatalities significantly higher than the day-by-day hospital tallies released by the NHS and Department of Health.
But the main drawback of the ONS statistics, which come out once per week, is that they’re 10 days out of date by the time they get published.
A forecast by the Financial Times has suggested that, by the time data for yesterday is released, it will turn out that at least 41,102 people had already died. The newspaper called this a ‘conservative’ estimate.
The current death toll according to the NHS and the Department of Health is just 17,337.
Statistics yesterday suggested the true figure including care homes deaths is at least 42 per cent higher, and revealed that the first full week of April, from the 4th to the 10th, was the deadliest week in England Wales for 20 years – 18,615 people died.
Almost 8,000 of those were considered ‘excess deaths’ – ones which would not be expected in an average week at that time of year – and were thought to be linked to COVID-19.
The Office for National Statistics, which releases data once per week and counts deaths that happen outside of hospitals, already outstrip NHS statistics by at least 41 per cent
The FT extrapolation is based on this number of excess deaths but its workings are not immediately clear.
While the ONS records mentions of COVID-19 in death certificates, the sheer volume of extra total deaths – including those that do not mention COVID-19 – means that the true toll from the disease is being undercounted, according to the FT analysis.
This indicates the ‘real’ death toll from the coronavirus is now running around 41,000.
The ONS data on Tuesday provided concrete examples of the under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths.
The statistics showed deaths in care homes had doubled over recent weeks, but only 17% of the death certificates mentioned COVID-19.
Cambridge professor David Spiegelhalter told the FT that it was not credible that these extra deaths could mostly come as a result of indirect effects from the coronavirus lockdown, such as seriously ill people avoiding hospital.
‘There is no suggestion that the collateral damage – however large it is – is anything like as big as the harm from Covid,’ Spiegelhalter said.
When asked about the 41,000 death figure from the FT, Helen Whately, a junior health and social care minister, said: ‘That is not a figure that I recognise.’
‘We know that people are dying in care homes and we know that more people than usual are dying in care homes,’ Whately said, adding that the government would next week publish data on deaths in care homes.