Written by Econintersect
Last week the UK moved into the undesirable postion as the leading European country for COVID-19 deaths officially reported by the government. The official number of deaths, according to the government, reached 29,427 on May 5. On the same date the Office for National Statistics showed that 29,648 deaths were registered in England and Wales with Covid-19 mentioned on the death certificate by May 2, plus additional official death figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland, brought the UK’s toll to 32,313.
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Why does the Office for National Statistcs show a higher number (32,313) on May 2 than the government reported on May 5 (29,427)? The differences in reported numbers has been explained and this is not the reason we are writing this note.
Today (May 12), the BBC reported:
The number of people who have died because of Covid-19 is nearly twice as high as the figure we hear announced every day.
By 1 May, the number of coronavirus deaths announced by the UK government was just over 28,000.
Looking back at death registrations filed then, the figure is higher: just over 36,000 death certificates mentioned Covid-19.
The measure preferred by statisticians, counting all deaths above what would be expected, was even higher: more than 50,000.
The BBC covers a number of reasons why the oficial death count may have missed many who expored from the novel coronavirus including:
- Only those who tested positive for COVID-19 have been included.
- Those people dying outside of hospitals were largely untested.
The BBC goes on to show a method for estimating the COVID-19 realted deaths used by statiticians:
If you look at all deaths in a country, irrespective of cause, you will capture the deaths missed by lab testing, the misdiagnosed deaths and the deaths caused by the strain the virus puts on our society.
Of course, you’ll capture the heart attacks and car accidents that might have happened anyway.
But the total number of deaths registered in a week normally follows a predictable pattern.
If there are no unusual causes of death to be noted other than COVID-19 during a time period, then most of the deaths falling above the normal range can be ascribed to COVID-19.
The weekly excess for the weeks of the pandemic indicates a total of at least 50,000 deaths by May 1, more than 170% of the government’s official number.
As of today (May 12) the number from Office for National Statistics has climbed to 40,496 deaths from COVID-19 for the entire UK. Graphic from The Guardian:
The global tracking data from Steven Hansen’s daily report for May12 (via Our World in Data), shows the UK has definitely started bending down the curve for COVID-19 deaths using the official data. But considering the apparent significant under-reporting do we really know the curve has been “bending” as shown? Could the actual bending be worse? Or better?
The analysis of what has really been happening with this pandemic may be years in the untangling.
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