UK's daily death rate is now the highest in the world

[effingterrified]

"The UK now has the highest rate of confirmed deaths from Covid-19 worldwide, averaging close to 5 in every million people per day.

Figures from the last seven days show that the average death rate in the UK is now more than that of France and Italy combined."

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-uk-death-toll-rate-world-map-tracked-a9532286.html

[RenfieldsAfoot]

Yes, but but our capital city has a population of around 9 million. France and Italy's less than 3 million.

[FlamingoAndJohn]

True but our deaths per million are still the second highest in the world.

[LillianGish]

As someone who lives in France, I don't find this at all surprising. The lockdown in Britain came so late and was so light compared with what happened here. BJ (or should that be DC?)'s piss poor management of the situation means the UK has the worst of both worlds - a high death toll and a trashed economy.

[TheGreatWave]

Are they not ahead of us in the curve?

[savehalloween]

Our geography and population density is different. The way we count deaths is different. We are at a different stage in the epidemic.

Why are people absolutely gagging for this to be worse than it is at every stage? Why not celebrate the fact that fewer people are dying now?

[ToffeeYoghurt]

Renfields Other countries in the world have similarly populated cities to London.

Flamingo Oh that's ok then. We're 'only' second in the world per million.

I'm confident, OP, plenty will be along soon with excuses and attempted justifications for our shocking (lack of) handling of the pandemic.

You'll get the but, but, but we're reporting more deaths than everywhere else in the world (really?? Evidence please), or we're apparently testing more (so is everybody else and more than us), or more sickeningly the eugenics supporters with their 'most young healthy people will be fine'. Nevermind the elderly or the huge numbers of younger people with prexisting conditions.

Of course that lot don't stop to think how many more young healthy people could be at risk if we hadn't had our (very half hearted) lockdown. They also fail to consider the potential long-term effects this virus might have on anybody - young and healthy included. We don't yet know. It's still early days.

[SweetLikeChocolateBoy]

Why are people absolutely gagging for this to be worse than it is at every stage? Why not celebrate the fact that fewer people are dying now?

This, why not concentrate on our own figures coming down. As pp said, so many different factors.

[ToffeeYoghurt]

Why are people absolutely gagging for this to be worse than it is at every stage?
Why indeed. You'd think by now people would want the UK government to implement at least some of the simple measures other countries have taken that mitigate the damage. Yet here we still are with many still desperate to pretend all is ok, the deadly very infectious virus will magically go away if we stamp our feet and demand A Return To Normality Now.

Sadly I suspect some of this stems from younger white middle class people who live outside large cities thinking it won't affect them so who cares. They've seen the reports that it's devastating care homes, that deprived urban areas are hardest hit, that it's affecting BAME communities more than others, and they don't care and think that means they won't be impacted in any way.

[SweetLikeChocolateBoy]

@ToffeeYoghurt lockdown cannot carry on as it is. Too many people enjoying being furloughed and adamant (secretly hoping) there will be a second spike.

Whether people like it or not numbers are falling. There was never that VE second spike or bank holiday second spike. Get places open again and shield over 70's/vulnerable.

[PasserbyEffect]

This, why not concentrate on our own figures coming down. As pp said, so many different factors

Why not concentrate on both? Surely there's room for more than one thought/feeling in our brains?

I'm glad the number are down, but concerned by how slowly they're dropping, and dismayed but not surprised that they got so high in the first place.
Was it that hard? Or are we only allowed to look at the bright side?

[HirooOnoda]

@savehalloween “Our geography and population density is different. The way we count deaths is different. We are at a different stage in the epidemic.”

Not withstanding all of those things above on which we are in agreement with, it is quite hard to make a case that we are performing anything other than quite poorly in international comparisons - this I assume isn’t in dispute?

The reason to make the international comparisons point, one would hope, is to learn the lessons which were not taken seriously enough at the start of this epidemic. This additional scrutiny would hopefully lead to improved performance from those making the decisions and thus improved outcomes for us all.

[Mulhollandmagoo]

@SweetLikeChocolateBoy I agree now, I think the infection rate in the community is low enough that we can start getting back to normal. I was due to return to work from maternity leave the week after Boris
announced lockdown so I was furloughed immediately, I feel like I'm loosing my mind. I need some normality and structure back

@ToffeeYoghurt things are being implemented? We can't stay in lockdown forever, and we've passed the peak of infection, the lockdown was to prevent the NHS becoming overwhelmed, which it wasn't. There needs to be a point where we can safely co-exist with this virus, we can't hide away from it forever

[theseriousmoonlight]

I don't think it's a case of gagging for things to be the worst. For me, I'm constantly astounded at how badly we seem to have handled this crisis. Especially when we had more time to prepare. We need to remember that even though we might be coming out the other side, but we maybe shouldn't have had such a terrible amount of deaths in the first place.

[PasserbyEffect]

There was never that VE second spike or bank holiday second spike
You do realise there would be roughly at least a one-month lag before the spike appears in the death stats?

[howdidwegetheremary]

Maybe it’s just down to the fact that there are too many people crammed on a tiny island?

[theseriousmoonlight]

There was never that VE second spike or bank holiday second spike.

I think we will be seeing the spike if it does happen in the next few days. We need to take into consideration the lag in data and the fact it can take 2 weeks for people to show symptoms.

[SunbathingDragon]

We will only know once the virus has passed what the true rate was and how countries compare to us.

There was never that VE second spike or bank holiday second spike

Like the hospital yesterday that closed to new admissions after 50 tested positive in 25 hours? Remember, it takes up to a week to show symptoms and you usually start to need hospital care from day 10...

[ReviewingTheSituation]

The rate of deaths/cases will always be high for UK because until recently we did very little testing, and what we did was mainly of people ill in hospital. So a lot more of those tested died.
Other countries have tested a LOT more, therefore have more proven cases, and therefore lower deaths (as a ratio of cases).

[ToffeeYoghurt]

That is certainly something we need to look at @howdidwegetheremary
We are, I believe one of the most populated countries in Europe - and a much smaller land mass than those with larger populations. The problem is too many are centred in one or two places with the resulting high density housing and overcrowding problems. And air pollution.

We could accommodate a growing population if we funded it properly and had the population more evenly spread across the UK. We need investment in housing, infrastructure, public services.

[Keepdistance]

Why would it be chance or overpopulation. Every other country used masks.

Usa werent and got up to 25% of people catching it in nyc.
We werent and got 17% in london.
Thing is a second wave might be not so badin london but rest of uk will be f'd with only 5% anyway.
I dont call 1/375 infected that low tbh it is 1 kid per primary and one every other secondary year group let alone parents.
If there isnt another wave straight away it will bemore to do with vit d and weather/outside rather than management.
I homestly think other countries will not let us in i mean 1 flight from uk probably has an infected person on it...

[ToffeeYoghurt]

@Mulhollandmagoo
We're implementing those measures? Are we? Excellent news if the government has finally - months after other countries - started to do this. It must be a very recent announcement.

We can't hide away forever
No. So we need to do what other countries have already done to make easing our already very half hearted lockdown less risky to the economy and lives.

That means enough PPE for frontline staff, test, track and trace properly running, early treatment, masks for the public. And proper quarantine for international travellers. That doesn't mean travelling to their UK destination on public transport before starting it.

We could've had all this up and running by now. Other countries have managed it.
We should get on with it now. Better late than never.

[donquixotedelamancha]

Why are people absolutely gagging for this to be worse than it is at every stage? Why not celebrate the fact that fewer people are dying now?

I don't think OP's point was that this is good!

I rather imagine they want to be able to celebrate far fewer deaths.

[Nearlyalmost50]

There may be different ways of counting Covid-19 deaths, but actually excess deaths aren't so prone to those measuring issues. We are top of excess death measures for this time period compared with everywhere else. There's no getting away from it.

[june2007]

I looked at one comparison which seemed to suggest that italy france and belgium were faring worse when you looked at pecentages. But the issue is also how the stats were corelated/ who is included / what are the dates which is why they stopped comparing them .

[ToffeeYoghurt]

@Keepdistsance
I'd lay a bet on any second wave being bad in London. Heathrow is receiving thousands daily including from very badly hit countries like Brazil. No checks or quarantine before they head off - likely on London's busy public transport system.

The high density overcrowded housing in London was a major factor in the spread there - and bad housing and the linked deprivation also plays a role in the prexisting conditions that increase somebody's risk with Covid.

17% of 9 million is low. Even if it's as high as 40% as some overly optimistic people estimate, that leaves millions vulnerable.

Bear in mind London has the largest elderly population in the UK.

I completely agree with you about masks. Most of the European countries starting to ease their (proper) lockdowns have mandated masks for the public. Studies suggest they reduce infection rates by 75%.