This is why don’t know the true UK death toll

Although we are told daily the death toll for the Covid in UK, we do not really know what is the true figure.

The death past 12,000 in UK due to Covid-19, but we know that this death toll figure is not true and the complete picture as it excludes deaths occurring in other settings, including care homes. One care home told a third of its residents had died, but deaths in care settings may not be captured in official figures for weeks after they occur.

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The true UK death toll

According to government figures, there were 12,107 deaths in the UK to 5 pm on 13 April. The problem is that this figure only tells part of the story as it just covers hospital deaths that had been verified as of that date. But in community and care homes, we don’t know the exact number of the death toll from there. The true figure, as revealed in the Office for National Statistics’ latest release, was at least 52% higher than was known at the time.

It can be that the care home deaths are counted separately and never make it into the daily government announcements. Probably the big death toll you hear every day is an undercount. Until now, two of the UK’s largest care home providers have reported 521 Covid-19 deaths between them so far. The only official figures for care home deaths are published by the ONS. These come out weekly, but there is a time lag because there is a delay between a death occurring and it being registered.

The latest ONS figures provide a breakdown of the locations where 4,122 registered Covid-19 deaths took place. They show that 217 or 5% of deaths that occurred in England and Wales registered by 3 April actually happened in care homes. A further 136 deaths occurred in private homes, while 33 were in hospices. ONS said that when all comparable data was taken into account, the number of deaths in England was about 15% higher than the NHS figures. In Ireland, France, and Germany, official data on deaths include those in care settings.

Of Irish deaths up until 11 April, 54% had occurred in care homes, according to the country’s chief medical officer. Figures released by the French public health authority show 45% of deaths took place in care homes. Italy and Spain, by contrast, do not report deaths in care settings regularly. In Italy, best estimates were based on a survey of 10% of care homes in the country. The death rate in this sample was extrapolated to reach an estimate for all care homes, which suggests 53% of Covid-19 deaths were happening in care. In Spain, estimates based on regional totals submitted to the government also suggest those in nursing homes accounted for more than half of deaths.