UK currently has highest coronavirus death rate in the world.

[bevelino]

COVID-19: UK currently has highest coronavirus death rate in the world, researchers say. The U.K. is a developed country with first class scientists and resources. Why is the death rate so high? Furthermore, why does the government continually boast everyday about how well they are doing tackling covid?

The government need to be held more accountable because their handling of covid is a complete disaster.

I’m afraid two things the government is good at is failing to accept responsibility and blaming others.

They could start by adhering to their own weak guidance. Those covidiot (not even a word) include the prime minister who decided he was OK going to a private garden with his son and protection officers. I accept the risk was low, but people see its OK for him to bend the rules so follow suit with the ‘its only guidance or it doesn’t apply to me attitude’.

The government could have followed the expert advice instead of dismissing it at every opportunity from 2016.

The Mail and Sun headlines sound good about vaccination, but even now they refuse to follow the world expert and manufacturer advice. Millions of people are not vaccinated. They are part vaccinated and so that will render the whole propaganda programme less effective. It’s appalling behaviour to set out to undermine the safe use of the vaccine.

When people say we're the 6th richest country, that's private wealth isn't it? Why doesn't our government distribute this wealth more fairly with a higher minimum wage, better T&Cs etc?
This is question really, rather than a statement. Personally I'd be embarrassed to be running a wealthy country with so many of my citizens needing food banks. Is it a taxation problem?

Yes it's bad. Government, Only now testing airport arrivals. Only giving mums with young kids hours notice that kids aren't going back beginning jan.

But public refusing to comply. Who 'made' all these people go to the beach?
It's public fault aswell.

Are all countries counting deaths and cases in the same way now then?

Months ago we definitely were not so has it changed? You cant compare otherwise.

@Charley50 it's total GDP. Of course a lot of it depends on the size of the country. GDP per capita is often a better measure of private wealth. In terms of GDP per capita, UK is number 21 but parts of London and the SE are closer to Monaco/Sweden.

However by all measures, the UK is a very wealthy country with chronic underinvestment in public services

We have a lot of overweight, unhealthy people. We have an older population. These things are the main risk factors when it comes to dying of covid. Our health service is also not as good as some health services in other wealthy nations.

There are an awful lot of countries not counting Covid deaths properly. My dad lives in one - he has had friends who had died from what looks like it but have not even been tested.

I have colleagues who live in other countries where the numbers are being deliberately suppressed.

I'm not saying ours is not an issue by any means - but I do think there are other factors at play. I recall in the summer when they compared excess deaths, Spain had done worse than the uk but not sure what it would look like now.

@Lanzo en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass_index

We are number 40 in the world in terms of BMI below countries like Ireland. We are also not the top 10 countries in the world in terms of aging population.www.prb.org/countries-with-the-oldest-populations/

Yet we are number 1 in terms of covid death rate.

The government have been knowlingly running the NHS and local authorities into the ground for years. They have also handed out contracts to private companies (see test and trace) that have no experience or the required infrastructure to undertake public sector work.

Health and social care services are shit at the best of times and this is the worst of times.

@Lanzo

We have a lot of overweight, unhealthy people. We have an older population. These things are the main risk factors when it comes to dying of covid. Our health service is also not as good as some health services in other wealthy nations.

Well there we go again. Blame people for getting old. Other nations have older populations.

Our health services might have fared better if we spent as much as other countries on their healthcare. If we had more funded and staffed beds in the first place.

Where are the outcomes of the millions given to Dyson? He was contracted to provide 10, 000 ventilators initially. What has this Tory donor done with the money?

[quote onlychildandhamster]@Lanzo en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass_index

We are number 40 in the world in terms of BMI below countries like Ireland. We are also not the top 10 countries in the world in terms of aging population.www.prb.org/countries-with-the-oldest-populations/

Yet we are number 1 in terms of covid death rate.[/quote]
We are actually 6th for mortality rate at the moment. Probably the highest we have been and we have been switching around positions with countries in South America and Europe throughout the pandemic.

Places like Japan have an old population but a healthier one.

We probably have just the right mix of people who live longer but aren’t particularly healthy, a good enough health service to keep people alive for a bit longer but not as good as some of the others.
We don’t have a totalitarian state. We have the biggest city in Europe and we are very multinational with lots of people who want to and have the right to travel here.

But I don’t really know why. I just think blaming covidiots is stupid.

It is a fucking disaster and was going to be from start to finish when the government treated it like a storm in a tea cup. However i never thought it would get this bad.

It bores me when people start banging on about covidiots. This happened because of the lack of clear direction from the government. How many u turns?

Many other eu countries had lockdown rules less strict than us -don't think any eu country has banned indoor mixing of households completely - many still allowing 2-3 families and have done throughout.

Its purely nhs and social care under funding - and dare i say it bubbles

People mixing outside has been shown to have no effect whatsoever so stop blaming the beach goers - the legal mixing did this - how else do the elderly grandparents get it? Didn't see them at the beach. We simply allowed cross generational mixing because people are selfish. Other countries probably distanced from elderly family.

How many of here still seeing parents? I've not been indoors with mine since last march (except for xmas day and we all got tested). I could have made a bubble but i'm not stupid -i am in work- i know bubble doesn't equal safety. People have bubbled all over and then blame those mixing outside where even sage says outside doesn't have a significant effect.

How many using elderly family as childcare?

@Lanzo therr are covidiots in every country. But there is a government that has been in power for 10 years who should be held responsible.Taiwan isn't a totalitarian state either, neither is south Korea. We are also an island and not part of the Schengen zone so easier to impose border controls.

The government has made plenty of mistakes, but fact is that most of Western Europe has struggled.

Which is a more useful comparison point than South Korea or New Zealand.

The vaccine rollout is impressive thus far and there’s a good chance the U.K. will be out of the woods faster than many other countries. Worth focusing on that right now.

I think it is several things.

Drunk on Brexit, our government ignored the pandemic until too late. We then switched from herd immunity to suppression pretty late (March). Our government don't believe in properly funded public services so gave billions to useless cronies rather than use experienced professionals for various aspects of the covid response. We has a first lock down that everyone made huge sacrifices to obey then the Cummings saga and the cabinet's response to it made everyone realise it was guidance and not law. Since the original lockdown the rules have been inconsistent and have changed too often so some people find them harder to follow or give up.

Cutting public services over the years means our health service is fragile and we can't properly police the rules. Also early on we should have looked at properly supporting self isolation for those who can't afford it.

Plus we do have a unhealthy population and many elderly people with underlying conditions.

neither is south Korea

It’s probably fair to call South Korea a survellence state. The government has access to basically all your data. Phone records, bank records, cctv, they have it all. They can and do publish geolocations of those diagnosed with Covid.

They are awesome at T&T because of this. None of it is possible in the UK because of GDPR.

I think it's a bad government. Ministers and civil service already exhausted by brexit. They were too tired and incompetent to do a decent job.

Plus we've got horrendous inequality, worse than many other European countries.

The biggest failing comes from the a big slice of the UK population not following guidelines and being deliberately confused so they justify pleasing themselves .
A virologist on the radio said as shocking as they seem a rave with 500 people causes nowhere near to amount of infections as loads of slight rule breaking .Meeting 3 people instead of 2, seeing a relative in there house loads of little breaches make massive infections .

OP, which researchers say the UK has the worst death rate in the world? And in what way? Do you have a link?

The UK does not have the highest death rate or highest deaths per 1 million population so not sure what you mean.

The UK are notoriously non compliant, we have huge rates of obesity and poor lifestyle choices. We also have a 'longevity' approach to life, meaning we have an elderly population with many underlying health conditions.

The state of the UK makes us a perfect sorm in terms of being badly prepared to face a pandemic.

The NHS has far less bed capacity than many other nations added to a shortage of trained medical staff here. Who thought it a good idea to make nurses pay tuition fees?

We have an ageing population as well as quite an unhealthy/overweight portion.

It is not due to non compliance of the people that has put us here.

@reformedcharacters

OP, which researchers say the UK has the worst death rate in the world? And in what way? Do you have a link?

The UK does not have the highest death rate or highest deaths per 1 million population so not sure what you mean.

@reformedcharacters I am unable to link via my iPad but it was all over the news yesterday. Look at Sky News where you will see the headline:

“The UK currently has the highest daily death rate in the world, according to figures collated by an Oxford University research platform.

Our World In Data revealed an average of 935 daily deaths over the last week was the equivalent of more than 16 people in every million dying each day with coronavirus”.

@reformedcharacters www.standard.co.uk/news/health/uk-highest-daily-covid-death-rate-world-oxford-research-b900231.html