Official death toll in UK now over 40,000.

[ssd]

At last it includes care home deaths, not just hospital deaths.

What an utterly awful figure.

Horrendous, isn't it.

It's dreadful. At the start they said it could be over 500,000 without the lockdown measures, but that it would be a 'success' if the death toll was kept below 20,000. That one came and went a long time ago.

There is however a little corner of my brain that wonders if at least some of those deaths are among people who crowded onto beaches and Snowdonia that infamous weekend.

It's so sad, its unbelievable. Its almost half of the deaths in the USA and they are sooo much bigger than us.

Where does it say that figure. It says 32,000 on worldometer and they’ve been adding all deaths everywhere since 29th April?

According to Chris Giles, the Economics Editor of the Financial Times, the actual figure is more like 59,700.

mobile.twitter.com/ChrisGiles_

They publish their own analysis every time the ONS releases more data.

There was that website a few weeks back that predicted the UK was going to be the worst hit country in Europe and that our death toll would be around 60,000. At the time, everyone dismissed it (I think they had the wrong number of critical care beds or something), but it might actually prove to be one of the most accurate estimates

We have the most populated country in Europe also less density / we are also counting care home deaths other countries are not and from what I hear of 3 people who lost people to heart attack , cancer and a stroke .. covid was put on their death cert you will not know the final figures for a few years

According to the FT, the actual figure is around 60,000 currently.

That's unimaginably large, in just two months.

There is simply no way of accurately looking at these figures until they can be annualised.

You are looking at a significant proportion of the people who died in the last two months of (with) COVID who would have died in the coming months of something else.

Trying to find ways to create headline making numbers out of statistical snapshots and the guesstimates of journalists is crass hyperbole at best.

No, Sadie, the FT figures are the most reliable ones we have as they are based on excess deaths, which is the one thing that can be reliably counted, and reliably compared to other countries.

The UK's figures are the highest in Europe and second worst in the world.

The only country with a larger number of excess deaths than us is the US and there population is over 5 times bigger than ours!

The UK is a global laughing stock for our government's handling of us.

Which would explain all the really obvious paid trolls infesting this board.

@effingterrified the most reliable stats are those published by ONS.

The FT is a newspaper. The journalists are no more qualified than you or I in analysis or construction of effective statistical models.

Newspapers have to create an angle in order to get people to read their stories. FT have gone after this angle and put no doubt lots of lovely effort into GUESSING at these numbers.

Sadie dear, you do know those figures are the Excess Death figures, they are not created by the FT journalists, just reported by them?

Are you usually this dense?

The BBC are reporting 50,000 this eve based on the number of deaths over the usual average number of deaths.
Horrific but I'm not surprised. Whichever amount it is it's too many and it's far from over.

The ONS has not published excess deaths for 2020.

They aren't plucking numbers out of thin air though are they! Even if the Financial Times numbers are inflated any number of deaths Is too many deaths 10000 would be bloody awful 50000 is fucking appalling.

@effingterrified people that resort to name calling so early in a debate do so because they don’t have a fact-based rejoinder.

When you look at the size and population density of countries, our nearest comparator is Germany.
It is also possible to compare levels of testing, numbers of cases as well as deaths.
I think the UK government has made a real mess of this.

But what is the point in making up numbers at this stage? Why not deal with the facts - the numbers that have been recorded. Why the need for projections? Then becomes pure conjecture and done for one reason only, hysteria. It serves no effective purpose.

Latest ONS statistics: www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending1may2020

From there:

"Looking at the year-to-date (using the most up-to-date data we have available), the number of deaths up to 1 May 2020 was 247,251, which is 41,627 more than the five-year average (Figure 2). Of the deaths registered by 1 May, 33,408 mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate, this is 13.5% of all deaths."

I'm presuming that's where the 40k+ figure comes from? I'm confused by the last figure, though - 33,408 registered COVID deaths by May 1st, yet our official count today is somewhere around 32,600.

Sadie you do know the Financial Times employs statisticians, don't you.
And yeah, they are no probably no more qualified than me or a few other people here, however, they are probably similarly qualified.

Depends on who you listen to as to the stats. They are also including deaths of people who have not been tested but may have shown symptoms. However those symptoms could be something else so personally I don’t think they should be counted unless they have tested positive

I also find it difficult that no country seems to be counting the same way

But whichever way you count it’s to high,

Miriel the ONS has really upped its game and is doing a great job.

The excess deaths figure since March is over 50,000.

Hugh Pym Reported that this is the stat that will be used to calculate the final toll, when this is eventually (hopefully!) over.

@pestymcpestface

Well, no, they don’t.

They employ journalists with an interest or background in economics who may have a bent for statistics, but if they were statisticians they would be working for a body such as the ONS.

There are no statisticians working at the FT.

Lots of journalists though who need to get page views for their articles. Hence the sharing of said articles on Twitter etc etc