Covid: UK has the highest death toll in Europe so calls for inquiry

The UK has overcome Italy and now reports the highest Covid death toll in Europe.

The UK has the highest Covid death toll in Europe and has called for an inquiry into the handling of the pandemic. The government’s tally of fatalities across the UK reached 29,427 for those who tested positive for Covid-19, exceeding the 29,029 recorded in Italy.

Italy figures do not include suspected cases.

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Calls for inquiry as UK reports highest Covid-19 death toll in Europe

Dr. Claudia Paoloni, president of the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association trade union, said that Britain having the highest number of deaths in Europe showed that ministers had “searching questions” to answer about their “inadequate” handling of the crisis, and called for a public inquiry. Then Dr. Chaand Nagpaul, British Medical Association council chair, said that the figures were extremely concerning “given that the UK was originally affected by the outbreak later than many other nations, and with the government initially saying that a death toll of 20,000 would be a ‘good outcome’.”

The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth even said that today’s confirmation that the UK has the highest official death rate in Europe is a tragic reminder of the severity of this horrific disease. The public will rightly ask why our death rate is so high. Dominic Raab, repeated previous warnings by ministers and experts against making international comparisons, describing it as “speculation” to say the UK had the highest death toll in Europe.

He also added “I don’t think we’ll get a real verdict on how well countries have done until the pandemic is over and particularly until we’ve got comprehensive international data on all cause of mortality. We now publish data that includes all deaths in all settings and not all countries do that so I’m not sure that the international comparison works unless you reliably know that all countries are measuring in the same way.” The latest ONS figures show that 21,997 people died from all causes in the week ending 24 April, which is 11,539 more than the average for that week.