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 think a lot of people assume that 'currently' means overall or up to now. But currently means that this week or this last few days. The waves are differnt in different countries so there were times where UK had very low death ratesand other countries very high.
When this is all over, the overall deathrate will matter, not individual days.
The news love to make it out like the UK is the worst in everything. It is sad.
Besides different countries count differently, so not much point comparing constantly. Unless you want to feel crap and slack off the government. I dont like the Tories at all btw.

There's different ways of counting deaths - the chart I saw yesterday had San Marino top followed by Belgium. Italy and France are pretty similar to the U.K. despite taking different approaches re curfews etc. The USA per capita is lower apparently but my friend tells me they aren't testing as much in some states and even if they have tested positive they don't record deaths with covid as covid unless it has caused the death unlike in the U.K. (same in many countries). Covid appears on the death certificate here if you tested positive in the last 28 days no matter what you actually died of eg had end stage cancer, heart attack, etc

Unlike France, Italy, Belgium and Spain, we are not connected to mainland Europe.

We had the gift of time. We were warned by medics in Italy to ask. We didn't.

This image sums it up for me.

act

Average Life expectancy in UK 81 years old

Most deaths from covid - over 85's

Yet again we locked down too late. Locking down with death rates of 700 plus a new variant?! Plus people not following the rules because they basically can as the police are so under resources they can’t deal with it. And borders.

I wish people would stop moaning about track and trace.
This system is only effective if app uptake is high and compliance with app instructions is followed.

Neither has happened.

It works, I've isolated twice and had 3 tests, test results came back next day.
What more do people want.

We could have rationed food parcels and locked in for 9 months instead.

@Elcantador

The worldometer website says that UK has 1360 deaths / 1M, being the 8th on the list. Some Countries have 1900 deaths /1M How can the UK have the highest death rate if 7 countries have higher death rates? What am i missing?

They mean the current rate, not overall. We're at, or about to hit our peak, other countries are behind or ahead of us on their curve. This pattern has happened throughout the pandemic.

@Hrpuffnstuff1 that is not the track and trace I was referring to:

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/21/government-covid-contracts-britain-nhs-corporate-executives-test-and-trace

@Elcantador is correct. It's concerning so many people don't actually understand what they're reading about. Higher reported deaths in one week, nearing a peak from the new strain. Lower per 1m than reported figures for Italy, Belgium and several small countries. Once excess mortality is taken into account rather than just what's reported, there's then a sizeable increase in figures from Spain, Russia, Brazil etc. It's fine not to know all the detail, nor even look it up, but it's a pandemic and sadly people are dying in many places.

The UK is apparently the sixth richest country in the world. If 'resources are stretched', we need to look to the Governments which have been in power for the last decade for an explanation as to why.

Exactly. And why have we got one of the worst economic hits as well as the worst death toll?

Police refused to enforce the Law on face coverings so public indoor spaces became virus hotspots. Hopefully that is changing now.

Government thought foreign travel was more important than public health. Hopefully that is changing now (but borders are still open, a lot of people misunderstood what travel corridors meant and the fact that closing them just means people have to quarantine). This quarantine may not be policed either.

Police focus on the relatively safe activities of driving for exercise.

Poor quality PPE provided to NHS staff treating Covid-19 patients (non-ICU staff only getting an FFP1 paper mask and plastic pinny, when in reality a non-ICU Covid-19 patient is highly infectious and producing massive viral loads).

So many non-essential workplaces open and no policing of this.

Christmas mixing of households permitted by the government - the current deaths right now involve people who caught Covid-19 at Christmas.

The vaccine roll-out is going amazingly, but divide the numbers by a million. if you had to vaccinate 66 people and you had done 4, it would be clear there was a long way to go (even if you weren't going to vaccinate anyone under the age of 16, that is still a lot of people to get through). Half of patients in critical care are under 50 and not ECV apparently.

Giving into a small number of idiot backbenchers and Tory party donors rather than giving into the scientific advice until the very last minute. Consistently lifting lockdown too early and prioritising pubs and other hospitality industries. Lockdown 1 worked, the benefits of low virus levels were wasted on hospitality and foreign travel.

@HollyBollyBooBoo

Yeah it's all the Government's fault. Absolutely nothing to do with people constantly breaking the guidance and law is it.

Why has the enforcement been so poor then?

@wellthatsunusual

I'd be surprised if the population of the UK was any worse at adhering to rules than other countries, or at least other European countries. We have a bit of a reputation for being passive don't we?

It's just poor enforcement. No efforts to police the borders despite our island advantage. No efforts to make sure people were quarantining.

The government were literally campaigning for people to go back to the office in the summer/early Autumn and workplaces are one of the biggest causes of the spread.

@Indoctro

Average Life expectancy in UK 81 years old

Most deaths from covid - over 85's

You'll be grumpy about all those dying 85yo when your mum dies of something avoidable while waiting for an ambulance, or your kid dies in the back of one queueing for hours to transfer him to a hospital bed.

@Ohchristmastreeohchristmastree

If the cases are so bad because of the ‘rule breaker’ it’s still the government’s fault as they should have put in tighter restrictions to compensate.

And that’s a big if.

The government were advised to have a circuit breaker in September when there were 6,000 new cases a day. By the time they actually ‘locked down’ there were around 30,000 cases a day and they still decided on weaker restrictions than previously. And they reduced those restrictions at around 15,000 cases a day. Most other countries introduce restrictions before they get to 15,000 not loosen them.

There’s no way that the minority of people not following the rules is responsible for the number of extra deaths that policy will have caused.

There’ll be around 30,000 covid deaths in January alone in this country. Most of those could probably have been prevented by the government taking a less idiotic policy on Christmas.

Belgium has the highest rate and there are a few other countries with higher death rates than UK. But not many: www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

How far do you reckon this government can go before people stop thinking they are doing a reasonable job of handling covid?

@inquietant

I think deep down everyone knows we fucked up. I just feel incredibly sad about how much more of an economic mess the refusal to deal with covid has caused, on top of the needless death and ill health.

People say the government 'did their best'. If this was their best, they should resign because it really was appalling leadership and management.

There's no way the Right would have given Labour a pass with such an appalling leadership and badly handled crisis management for 10 months. Imagine if this was Corbyn as PM and it had been as badly handled. Maybe it would have been but the media would have been calling for his head on a spike long ago.

To be fair, the vaccines will be their saving grace if the roll out is successful and the vaccines work, but even so.

World beating

Don’t Belgium count their numbers differently? They might have changed the method of counting deaths, but I think at the start they were trying to ensure every possible covid case was counted for completeness.

I think if we counted the same way ours might be much higher. There’s a huge uptick in non-covid deaths from our first wave before we were testing better which hasn’t been seen since and were likely undiagnosed covid.

@Dundundunnn

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.

UK population respects law and order when enforced. This happened in the first lockdown.

When enforcement is completely lacking then the people do what they know they can get away with. That's bad on their part but humans are gonna human. Pointless complaining about how people are when human behaviours are factored into the decision making.

"The UK are notoriously non compliant"

Are we? The UK just sit back and let the government do whatever they feel like, moan continuously and then vote the same people in again. There are more protests against the government in supposedly compliant Asian countries than I ever see in the UK.

It’s happened in all the lockdowns. The three points at which cases have started to fall in the last year are just after lockdowns are introduced. They start to rise again when restrictions are released. In the case of the latest one, it looks like cases start falling in line with when the restrictions were tightened up on the 26th Dec, before the start of the official national lockdown.

There’s nothing that suggests that non-compliance plays a huge part in driving death rates.

I'd be surprised if the population of the UK was any worse at adhering to rules than other countries, or at least other European countries. We have a bit of a reputation for being passive don't we?

I would have assumed this a couple of years ago, but here in the south of Portugal, public compliance has been amazing since late March.
There have been very occasional, widely reported and prosecuted parties, but in all these months, I haven’t seen one person over the age of 4 or 5 without a mask in a supermarket, shop or public building. Shops had acrylic screens at tills in April, despite the fact that Portugal wasn’t as badly affected then.
I don’t know whether people are complying in their own homes, but in public spaces it is incredible.
I took a Portuguese exam in April that couldn’t be done remotely. Five of us in a large classroom with widely spaced, disinfected desks and open windows. Masks on to enter the school and throughout the exam. Hand sanitiser at the entrance. The examiner had a clear mask and sat behind an acrylic screen. For the oral, all bar one student left the classroom and that student could remove their mask to speak, metres away from the screened and masked invigilator.
Medical centres and dentists remained open but with rigorous procedures in place.
My husband and I both had to travel back to the U.K. during this period, separately and at different times. It was a huge shock to experience the difference. I felt so unsafe.