UK has revised the coronavirus-related death toll in the country to 26,771, the third highest figure in the world, after taking into account the toll in all setting such as care homes. Until now the deaths included only the hospital deaths, which was 21,678 till Wednesday. Under the new counting, the UK has leapfrogged Spain and France in Europe, with only Italy ahead. The US has the world's highest death toll.
The upward revision prompted renewed criticism of the government's approach throughout the crisis. The leader of the main opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, said the scale of deaths in the country is “truly dreadful” and has accused the Conservative government of being too slow in putting the country into lockdown, in testing people for the virus and in getting critical protective gear for medical workers.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab sought to ease any worries, saying the additional deaths were a cumulative total going back to March 2. “They don’t represent a sudden surge in the number of deaths,” he said at the government's daily press briefing. In spite of that, it is becoming increasingly clear that the UK could end up with the second-highest coronavirus death toll in the world, partly because Italy is considered to be around a couple of weeks ahead in the epidemic.
There is also an acknowledgment that the new figures underestimate the total death toll in care homes as they only include those who have tested positive for the coronavirus. Also, the death certificates of those dying in care homes can take a couple of weeks to be issued. Professor Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said the new figures, which her organization helped to compile, provide “a comprehensive picture, and this is most important for control.”
In spite of the grim death news, the trends in most of the virus-related numbers are heading in the right direction. The number of people being hospitalized with the coronavirus has been falling for the best part of three weeks, particularly in London, which was the epicenter of the outbreak in the country. Also the number of coronavirus-related deaths are falling when measured on a seven-day rolling basis. Doyle said she could not yet say whether deaths in care homes were falling but that “we should know that soon because the hospital curve has declined."
Raab said it was too soon for the government to make an assessment as to whether its five tests on easing the lockdown restrictions have been met. Among those tests are a “sustained and consistent fall" in daily coronavirus-related daily deaths, and reliable data showing that the rate of inflection has moderated to manageable levels.
