I am not going to accuse the UK government of lying to us about Covid-19 deaths, because that would be too kind to them.
980 deaths were announced yesterday, each a story of anguish for all those who died and their families and friends. My sympathies go to each of them.
Unlike other European countries, the trend in UK death rates remains upward. This data from Hohn Murdoch-Burns at the FT makes that clear:
But the data is also grossly wrong. As Chris Giles, also of the FT has made clear, the scale of under-reporting of deaths is staggering, simply by comparing with ONS data subsequently issued:
There are several technical reasons for this under-reporting.
First the figure for UK deaths excludes those who have died outside hospitals, and we know many are dying in the community, and most especially in care homes.
Second, the data excludes those who would not have died but for Covid-19 because of treatment of those who have coronavirus. I will be astonished if deaths from other causes are not rising, significantly.
Third, the claims are hopelessly out of date. As the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford noted yesterday, the data for the NHS in England noted yesterday was actually as follows:
In other words the figure for reported deaths was in no way a reflection of the truth yesterday. And on a known rising trend it was clearly a gross under-representation of that truth. Many more deaths area still to be reported as this chart from the same source makes clear:
The government is not continually acknowledging this. I suspect it is desperate to keep deaths at less than 1,000 a day. I suspect it is deliberately suppressing data as a result. I am sure that it knows the situation is much worse than it is reporting. I also very strongly suspect that it has no idea how to get out of this mess of its own making.
Eventually the number of Covid-19 deaths are going to be known.
Eventually the rate of abnormal deaths will also be known: the Office for National Statistics issue death-rate data weekly, and it is no more than two weeks out of date. The falsification of this data will become apparent.
What matters right now though is how and when that data is amended. And this is not just a technical issue. It has very real consequences. The argument has been made by the government that lockdown in the UK cannot be ended until the death rate declines. I am sure that is right. But we're not being told the true death rate, or when it might be happening. There is, instead, a substantial delay on our being told anything like the true data. And as a result when the end of lockdown might be considered is deferred.
This misinformation comes with a considerable cost.
Some of that cost is real. The government will spend more supporting people to not work as a result of this policy of misinformation.
Some will be seen in yet more business failures as lockdown continues.
Most worryingly, the deep human cost of isolation will increase, and we as yet have little idea of the consequence of this, but I think it will be staggering.
And all these costs will increase because the government will either have to admit it has simply not told the truth, or it will have to take time to let its untruths unwind.
Whichever way it is looked at, in that case this policy has been one of extreme folly.
I deeply resent not being told the truth. Day in and day out the government is providing false data to the country at present which is reported as fact when it is nothing like that.
Our Covid-19 deaths are far worse than the government represents.
This government's failure, in the European context, is far worse than the data yet tells.
The real cost of this misinformation is going to be massive.
And I am angry about that. This government is engaging in a propaganda war it is bound to lose at cost to us all and is doing so simply to protect their own incompetence.
That is unforgivable. I hope they are not forgiven.
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[…] Because we locked down too late when too many already had coronavirus our death rate is still rising when in other countries – the USA apart, who suffered this same delayed reaction – it is almost certainly falling and the stats may be reliable, unlike ours. […]
I imagine another factor is that if people were aware of the true scale of deaths from this virus, then they would be less inclined not to self-isolate. This is a major bank holiday weekend, and the weather forecast for most of England is most un-bank holiday like. The weather is even good here in Scotland. I am sure many will be tempted out of their homes who may have thought twice if the statistics weren’t being massaged.
I find that logic baffling.
If more had died they’d be less worried?
Why?
Fatalism. Basically saying that the house arrest approach isn’t working. Not necessarily saying that’s right but I take the point.
But my sense is that absent an exit strategy fatalism will set in soon anyway.
And what do you think will happen then?
I think by “less inclined not to self-isolate” he means “more incline to self-isolate”, despite the good weather.
The back- log in the recording of deaths in people at home or in care homes being transferred to the official gov.uk statistics will mean that the peak or flattening of the curve will be delayed so delaying the easing of restriction and the gradual return to “normal” (if ever!). Matt Hancock on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning was really struggling to justify the lack of protective equipment for medical staff trying to divert the blame to doctors and nurses for using too many masks etc. He was really on the ropes and desperate to make the government policies seen in good light despite the tragic increase in the number of deaths as you rightly point out are grossly under reported.
Sorry, I think my double negative may have confused. If people were aware of the true level of deaths, they would be more inclined to practise self-isolation. Do you get my point now?
Yes, I agree with that
One can get some idea of what the real figures may be like by comparing with what is happening here in France.
Like the UK, France was initially reporting only those Covid deaths occurring in hospital. There was no system in place to include those from the EHPAD (care & residential homes). Towards the end of March, they have cobbled together a system that now includes reporting from about 70% of those care homes.
Yesterday’s report, 13,197 total Covid deaths (8,598 in hospital for comparison with UK figure of 8,598), 578 of them being in hospital in the last 24 hours (unlike the UK where ‘yesterday’s’ figure includes a lot – the majority? – from earlier this month and even some from March).
INSEE (French equivalent of ONS) publishes interesting figures, by département (think UK counties) of ‘surmortalité (= excess all cause deaths compared with 2018/2019), some of which are striking. Haut-Rhin (includes the Mulhouse epicentre) +129%; Paris (from which a quarter of the population decamped to second homes immediately before the lockdown was introduced) +40% and the adjacent (poor) Seine-Saint-Denis +72%. For comparison, down in my neck of the woods it is a mere +8%.
Useful links:
https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/maladies-et-traumatismes/maladies-et-infections-respiratoires/infection-a-coronavirus/articles/infection-au-nouveau-coronavirus-sars-cov-2-covid-19-france-et-monde
https://www.insee.fr/fr/information/4470857
https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2020/04/10/coronavirus-la-surmortalite-en-france-par-age-sexe-et-departement_6036275_4355770.html
All of this is spot on. At last Channel 4 news has begun to chip away – far too discretely – at the pretence, by quoting the likelihood of the rate being under-reported by c.70%. Alex Thompson also, last night, managed to squeeze in that unike the rest of the UK, the figures for Scotland do, now, make an attempt to include care-home deaths. Indeed, this led to a significant (if still perhaps too small) upward jump in the figures earlier this last week. The obfuscation engaged in at the so-called daily ‘briefings’ to dodge giving details on health worker and other ‘front-line’ (another piece of regrettable military language) deaths is also a part of this desperate dishonesty. How can one say of something so horrific that this will ‘end badly’ – which it certainly will? We are beginning to need a new language for this new era of disaster. As Gabriel Kolko wrote of the decision to drop the atom bomb on Japan – “The consequence of usefull amnesia was wholesale death.” We should be warned.
Talking of statistics, a comment on the following comparison between Covid-19 figures for Scotland and Greece would be welcome:
The countries are not dissimilar, wild rural, plus dense urban.
Scotland (pop 5.4 million) – 5275 infections. 495 deaths (probably an under estimate given the uncertainty over ex-hospital statistics as noted above). Figures as posted this Easter week end.
Greece (10.4 million) – 2011 infections, 91 deaths.
That means about 0.98% of the Scottish population is infected, and about 0.09% have died.
The equivalent Greek numbers are 0.02% infected, 0.001% deaths.
WHAT is Greece doing that we are not? Or could their stats be seriously under-reported?
Scotland takes into account deaths in the community and care homes – that is why they seem high whereas England does not and that is why they do not report the English deaths only the total UK deaths – they look better that way.
Greece controls ALL aspects of government. Scotland is only allowed what England gives it. I don’t doubt the Scottish Government would have implemented more stringent measures if England didn’t control our purse strings
Your percentages for Scotland are high by a factor of 10.
I think this pandemic has come a little bit early for our ‘leaders’. They would have ideally preferred it to have arrived when a lot of jobs were being performed by robots then they could have washed their hands of any responsibility for the working classes. I think there will be a big push after the current crisis has died down to accelerate the introduction of robots into the workforce. Being the natural pessimist and cynic that I am I see all the governments efforts to spend into the economy simply as support for the capitalist class, not as support for the people. Of course the big flaw is that the robotisation of our economy results in a financial enrichment for the elite but impoverishment for the poor. One wonders who the elite think will be able to buy their products. It was a truth that Henry Ford knew a 100 years ago.
What is the nicest reason for under reporting?
To prevent panic maybe? All I hear is how fed up people are with the lock down or about the fear of contracting it – these seem to be the two camps emerging.
I returned home from showing my face at work last week (I have an essential worker letter on hand and PPE in my car) to find our next neighbour going berserk as a nurse had just found one of the elderly ladies who live behind us in a small sheltered bungalow scheme dead. Was it Covid-19? No one wanted to be near the ambulance when it came I can tell you.
My City Council has just taken delivery of hundreds of face masks, wipes and hand sanitiser that we are handing out to care homes in the city. They only arrived on Tuesday!! My housing section is only allocating homes to those going into temporary accommodation because some private landlords are STILL evicting people!! The Council has booked out a whole hotel to get homeless people off the streets.
This Covid-19 outbreak is also therefore a tale of lots of chickens coming home to roost because of the consequences of living in a badly governed country that was in a mess BEFORE this came to our doors.
I tell you this, HM Opposition parties had better fall on the Government like vultures when this is over and pick it apart, otherwise they can go to hell. The victims of this virus deserve nothing less – there are lessons to be learnt from this.
i am going off the figures the govt had given out, so 78k is infected and over nearly 10k of them are dead, which is just over 10%. So if we put that to the uk population as a whole, this mean 2.6 million + dead now, as per warned in the hammer and dance article. So if the numbers are higher then it is daggering to say the lease and a complete lock down, mass testing and funding for all the population should of been implemented. Most of all the UK population should of been told the truth, to get people to cooperate.
I love being on my own, and i mean on my own, for the most part being in the house is easy, very easy for me. However even i need to air sometimes and i am getting fed up being not able to go out for any period of time. So a person who can stomach being on their own for months, years on their own, is getting fed up with the lock down, imagine what it is like for people who love outdoors and with kids!
As for the opposition, Starmer wants to clap and give medals out to nhs staff. As for holding the tories to account not a chance.
Darren
Thankfully your data extrapolation is awry – but that’s because the data is as well
Richard
Hi, I’m interested in the death rate figures compared to a normal pre covid day. I’m wondering if there is a spike in deaths or if people who are dying from other causes (the normal things people die of everyday) are now being labelled as covid. The coding of the cause of death could have a big impact in the reporting. If this is the case we may see a drop in cardio vascular, cancer etc etc related deaths. Eg in Lombardy (Italy) in 2018 97,000 people died in a year. Interested how those figures pan out for UK, Europe and rest of world for 2020. If you know of reliable source of figures please let me know.
Deaths above normal is the critical indicator – and there is a time lag on reporting. Next batch due Tuesday
The ONS website explains which data they collect and issues around corona virus data accuracy as well as figures and charts comparing overall mortality over time.
They seem to be doing their best to provide accurate figures, but they can’t tell whether someone with underlying health conditions would have died anyway or whether the untested had the virus at the time of death. It’s left to a doctor to decide what to put on the death certificate.
They have found deaths have increased compared to a 5-year average.
So we simply look at abnormal death rates
I am reminded of the predicament of the Soviet Union, post-War when they attempted to calculate their losses in the Second World War. The scale of the losses, and the chaos of war meant that the only way they could derive a figure was from examining the population statistics, pre-war and post-war. I hasten to add that I am not implying comparative likeness to our predicament now, but rather reflecting on the implications of the underlying methodology, with this history as a striking example.
This meant the Soviet Union produced a figure that could only be estimated as ‘population loss’; direct calculation of casualties was impossible in the chaos. Using a ‘population statistics’ approach, It would have been possible to adjust statistically for deaths not caused directly by war, and it effectively adjusted for those never born (that indicates the scale of the loss). For anyone who wishes to see the result, see the outstanding historian of the place and period, John Erickson, ‘Barbarossa: the Axis and the Allies’, (1994): Ch.12, ‘Soviet War Losses: Calculations and Controversies’; pp.255-277.
The broadly agreed calculation the Soviets came up with, incidentally was c.48-50 million; roughly the population of Britain at the time.
I read that the present rate of death is some 10% above the average of the last five years figs for the same time period. This was in a local online news outlet, the owner/author happens to be tory voting. I think the same was also reported in an msm outlet, but cannot recall which.
This was 3 weeks ago
We do not know now
Here’s the last graph released up to week 14. Ominous.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/knbwZSUcj69ygZF7A
It’s important to differentiate between dying of Covid19 and dying with Covid19. In all instances having Covid19 with other pre-existing conditions would make one more susceptible.
What matters is excess deaths
And they are happening – by the many thousands, I fear
That means people are dying as a result of Covid 19 – whatever is on a hastily written death certificate
The Scottish Government initially were like UK Government and only reporting hospital deaths. Since early last week they have been reporting non hospital deaths, where a Doctor has included Covid-19 as a definite, or possible , cause of death. Daily figures were adjusted retrospectively to reflect this discrepancy. Figures are obtained from Hospitals and ONS in Scotland and to reduce the lag in the figures staff in ONS and Local Registrars are working 7 days. They are also looking for a mechanism by which they can investigate/ report the Deaths above the seasonal norm
But why are deaths being recorded as covid when they are only presumed?
Why are all these people not being tested? Surely to presume covid as the cause they must have displayed symptoms, they must have got worse and at somepoint when you feel so awful you’d call an ambulance, no? Since there is a period of viral shedding and coffins being nailed shut with family unable to say their last goodbyes, why aren’t they being tested when they’re pronounced and give a true reflection of our cases and deaths.
Is this to inflate our figures?
In the case of care homes, these are not hospices, surely our elderly should be treated, at the very least tested considering the small community environment they live in, the other service users and the carers. Carers who are not medically trained now giving end of life care. That doesn’t sit right with me.
Doctors do not gave PPE
They don’t have tests
They don’t want to die to get a stat right
They are human too
I was married to one for a long time
In fact, legally I still am
And the living are more important
But why are deaths being recorded as covid when they are only presumed?
Why are all these people not being tested? Surely to presume covid as the cause they must have displayed symptoms, they must have got worse and at somepoint when you feel so awful you’d call an ambulance, no? Since there is a period of viral shedding and coffins being nailed shut with family unable to say their last goodbyes, why aren’t they being tested when they’re pronounced and give a true reflection of our cases and deaths.
Is this to inflate our figures? I would much rather have a true figure.
In the case of care homes, these are not hospices, surely our elderly should be treated, at the very least tested considering the small community environment they live in, the other service users and the carers. Carers who are not medically trained now giving end of life care. That doesn’t sit right with me.
Thank you for a well written article, I am however always sceptical about conspiracy theories however I must agree the government is attempt control and they have put the army on the street just in case. There are a number of problems with the figures, briefly even just symptoms of covid19 causes a mention on the earth certificate that mention even along with several other causes gives a death 100% attributed to the virus. Secondly we haven’t a clue how many people have caught it. The final point is what is the potential cost of the cure both in cash and societal ie the mental health issues that will surely arise, suicides and some good old fashioned wife (and husband) beating. Not to say the harm to many kids who are simply not being educated at home. I cover some of this in this blog:
https://psychotrend.wordpress.com/2020/04/07/covid-19-something-doesnt-quite-add-up/comment-page-1/#comment-25
I fully appreciate the secondary issues
I also know people do not want hundreds of thousands of deaths and we would get them
As for death certs, the only true data will be excess deaths above trend
And the real answer? Creating a society that cares: we have lived in one of indifference.
By far the most perceptive piece I’ve read has been by @laineydoyle contrasting the differences between Ireland and UK.
Should be compulsory reading
https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker/
Someone mentioned this before re Scotland figures. He has a chart showing the trend of 2020 deaths compared to average for previous 5 years. (about half-way down LHS)
This government is great at making sure anyone who works in the public sector is silenced or made out to be a left wing loony. Nope, we just have first hand experienced backed up by a social conscience and usually at least a degree (social work for example) which looks at social trends. Particularly how politics and poverty are linked. So then austerity was invented by politicians to cover the mess up of bankers and poverty increases and poor people suffer more. Not to mention disabled people. It is staggering the levels of silence, misinformation, denial and guilt free politicians who know about the 130000 austerity related deaths in the UK. My point is that these Tories are so well versed in changing the truth and even making it seem like they are doing good…like banging on about money being invested (when 10 years of cuts is probably 10x greater) and not letting the press know that Chinese doctors arrived in the UK to help.
SCOTLAND includes those who have died in care homes etc in their figures. Far as I know so does Wales. ENGLAND does not. We need to make this clear to people, because the UK wide figures are wrong on every level.
NHS staff without the correct PPE.
Minimal testing (other than for government ministers, the royal family and the wealthy).
NO plan for the UK despite having MONTHS to prepare while watching China, Italy and Spain.
This is total incompetence on an incredible level, demonstrating the sheer selfishness and greed of most of the Tory party. You are not fit to govern this country.