British death toll highest in Europe

[SistemaAddict]

Covid-19: British death toll now highest in Europe
via The Irish Times
www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/covid-19-british-death-toll-now-highest-in-europe-1.4245336

This has made me so sad and angry. Why are we the worst? Why did we not learn from other countries and why do so many people (on here at least) think that we can get back to relative normal now?

Because we’re not admitting people to hospital until they’re at death’s door so we can ‘protect the NHS, which I’m getting sick of hearing to be honest - we should be protecting our people too!

But this is the highest number of deaths per country, rather than the number of deaths per 100,000 population, which would be more meaningful (although even this is difficult to compare, since different countries use different criteria).
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-52491210
This is a more helpful comparison, I think

"The figure is one of several methods of calculating deaths and difficult to compare with other countries, but it offers the clearest sign yet that Britain could emerge as the worst-hit country in Europe, despite being hit later than other countries."

Read further than the headline.

Isn't this a bit premature on any measure? Maybe you just like being angry. This is like predicting the full-time score five minutes into the match.

It's gov fault we have any more than a few hundred.

Italy returners not quarantined in fact sent into schools
Didnt quarantine the asymptomatic even though that was clearly an issue
Didnt test at all and after a week should have tested anyone with symptomsit
Cheltenham and madrid? Football
Returning care home people to care homes while positive on purpose
Not telling people to shield early enough
not closing schools
no ppe for probable cases staff and no tests unless admitted
--- Staff infected and spreading into community
No masks when italy had them at lockdown so we are still spreading everywhere
at peak people couldnt get into hospital so we lost people who only needed o2!
Because no testing people not as careful about spreadinh round their family as maybe thry just have a cold

However
Do we have more obesity
High bp
Uncontrolled other heath conditions (by nhs)
Low vit d
Possibly higher BME populations
Bigger cities? And public transport

It is excess mortality that is a more useful measure. Unfortunately though England does appear to be the worst affected part of Europe on this measure too www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps

We won't know excess mortality until it's over.
We're also reporting deaths in the wider community which other countries aren't

I suspect it's because most of them are in Care Homes. Not saying that's right, and there are questions about why that is.
Otherwise, I don't know anyone who has had the virus, let alone died with it.

@juliettango Our figures are only likely to get relatively worse though as we are behind most other euopean countries on the wave of infections and deaths.

There is an interesting discussion about the covid 19 death toll and data here in case anyone is interested
fullfact.org/health/covid-deaths/

It is excess mortality that is a more useful measure. Unfortunately though England does appear to be the worst affected part of Europe on this measure too

Note under the map:

"Week of study: 18, 2020.Must be interpreted with caution as adjustments for delayed registrations may be imprecise."

We won't know excess mortality until it's over.

This seems to be the most useful measure, and I guess we will have to wait for some time to know what it is. It will help to strip out those who died with covid rather than from it, and will take account of those indirectly killed, for example by not seeking medical help for cancer, heart conditions etc, or by unemployment and poverty, which is strongly correlated with morbidity. And it's more objective and consistent between countries than other statistics.

Well of course we don't know the exact picture yet. And yes there are many favours to take into account but that doesn't stop me feeling sad abs angry that we have so many deaths. It will be a long time before we can fully analyse all the figures and come to fuller co clumsily a bit for now we have to work with what we have.

It will be a long time before we can fully analyse all the figures and come to fuller co clumsily a bit for now we have to work with what we have.

I revert to my previous sporting metaphor. You're one-nil down five minutes in. Don't start demanding the manager is sacked just yet.

How does an island nation, led by a Brexiteer (take back control!) obsessed with controlling its borders end up with the highest death toll in europe?

Is it the same way an island nation obsessed with picking its own fruit ends up flying in Eastern Europeans to do it for them because jingoistic bluster and nationalistic willy waving is great for winning elections but really shit when you need to run a country in the middle of a crisis?

There are also reports of Spanish care homes being abandoned by their carers and residents dying wholesale

Historically we have a poor record;

"In the period 2001–10 (Labour) 214 people for every million died from pneumonia in the UK, which sits just outside the top 20 of countries for deaths from pneumonia."

"The only European countries with higher rates than the UK are Slovakia and Romania."

statistics.blf.org.uk/pneumonia

It's the natural consequence of not acting quick enough. Italy and Spain were the sitting ducks countries in Europe - the UK government had time to make a choice and didn't make one until the number of virus in the community forced its hand. Unfortunately it was too late and it's going to get worse.

The virus is extremely contagious, is unknown and kills people. It's not nationalistic - it doesn't give a shit if you are English, French or Moroccan or how countries try to fudge the number of dead people.

I honestly think this obsession of what country got the most dead or new positives is ridiculous. The world is having a pandemic and our vulnerable people are dying in all our countries.

Using absolute numbers that is true. However, not when you look at numbers per million or population density.

Not only is population size a factor but populations density too

United Kingdom: 432.16 per million population death rate and populations denity of 281 per Km2

Belgium is 693.74 per million and density 383 per Km2 - so their higher rate/million is no surprise, comparatively

Spain - 544.22 per million and density of 91.4 per Km2 - so their numbers are high both for population and density measures using the UK as a baseline

Italy - 481.19 per million and density 206 per Km2 - so their numbers are also high both for population and density measures using the UK as a baseline

And there are countless other confounding factors!

It’s also highly unlikely we were the last effected country out of those listed above

The reasearch coming out of the symptom tracker app shows our peak was at the same time as other countries peak a week or two before Uk predicted ours to be

You also can’t compare as some aren’t counting COVID as death cause if they were already in hospital for something unrelated first

Because we’re not admitting people to hospital until they’re at death’s door so we can ‘protect the NHS, which I’m getting sick of hearing to be honest - we should be protecting our people too!

I agree with you totally

@CuriousaboutSamphire I agree about deaths/million of population being a key measure. But Italy and Spain had their peaks (of infections and deaths) over a month ago. The UK is weeks behind (if indeed it has really hit a peak of either). At a similar point in their epidemics, Spain and Italy's deaths/million were lower.

On deaths/million, the UK is set to outstrip them.

At any rate, all 3 countries will have far more CV19 deaths than currently reported.

It's ridiculous to compare country with country, it can only make sense per number of population. Of course RoI's deaths are small compared to the UK, for example, as their population is less than that of London. That's without taking into account population density.

Any more skewed info you want to share with us?

Agree with @Alondra : the world is having a pandemic of a really vicious bat virus from china. This obsession of comparing which european country stats most deaths is not really helpful. Look instead perhaps at why - bizarrely - Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea death rates are really, really low.