Anyone interested in being factual should view the governments reporting of Covid deaths with extreme scepticism.
The official figure currently stands at 61,245. I think that’s absolute horseshit, to be frank.
Excess deaths was about 70k earlier in the year. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were judging 80-85k at this point in time.
Well, quite - which is why I caveated my previous posts with the point about what is being counted. But the worldometer figures are the ones I’m citing because they appear to be the ones being cited by @costared when claiming that Spain have had 15,000 fewer deaths as apparent evidence that Spain has handled the response better than the UK.
Of course, there’s huge suspicion regarding the accuracy of the reported UK covid-related deaths, just as there is with China’s reporting - and perhaps Russia’s as well. All other countries, of course, their reporting can be 100% relied upon. Particularly Spain’s, it’s the gold-standard 
I’m sceptical of the accuracy of all the data reported by all countries to varying degrees but we have to work with the numbers being given.
[I do find it slightly odd that the UK has reported the highest death toll in Europe and yet it’s the UK’s figures that most posters on here are suggesting are being under reported (perhaps rightly so). But little thought seems to being given to the possibility that other countries may also be under reporting, possibly by even greater degrees.]
Spain’s numbers through to July drew at least as much skepticism as the UK’s though. Not sure what the current state of that controversy is, but it is important to be as skeptical of other government narratives as well as Johnson’s.
That’s all true, but to be honest I’m a bit uncomfortable with this idea of pitting country against country anyway. It can never be a fair comparison.
The fact that in the UK we were able to watch Coronavirus roll across Europe and knew it was only a matter of time and the fact that we are an island and able to close our borders and monitor imports, should reflect very badly on the UK
Hey, it wasn’t me that started it 
To counter that, one of the issues that could have made the UK a particular hotspot was when Trump banned all flights to the US from Europe except those coming in from UK and Ireland. If one thing was going to act as turning the UK into a petridish it was that. Cheers Don.
However, given that, where the UK massively, MASSIVELY, failed was in the total absence of screening and contact tracing at UK airports. It was practically non-existent. Totally negligent from the government.
Or the UK got the vaccine first because it is in dire shits due to having mishandled the entire Corona situation on a massive macro-scale from the onset, having large excess deaths, so regulators had all the incentives in the world to approve it fast.
How is it that the UK have all of these distasteful nationalist populists in government, they seem to be found everywhere these.
Chris Giles of the FT was one of the first to keep a running tab via the excess deaths figure and has recently said its around 80k now
Isn’t that what the government does?
Just pointing out equal amounts of absurdity, although one I would say is innocent the other far less so.
I’m certain they were pushed no doubt and rightly so. This governments only option now is to have a working vaccine.
I’m waiting for the distribution to struggle.
I don’t know what source is reliable…this is the one that google just returned to me
If excess deaths is a more reliable metric and if the above is a reliable collation from around the world:
It’s showing England and Wales excess deaths as at 22 November 2020 being 62,704, Northern Ireland 1,548, and Scotland 5,618 (as at 29 November 2020) - so UK total as at ~22/29 November 2020 being 69,870 (1,027 per 1million of population).
Spain at 68,036 as at 15 November 2020 (1,455 per 1million of population).
That would indicate that rather than 10% higher, Spain’s death rate is in fact 41.6% higher than the UK’s.
Actually, I can use the same date as Spain’s last update (15 November) for the UK too.
England and Wales 60,545
Northern Ireland 1,462
Scotland 5,202
Total UK as at 15 November 2020: 67,209 (988 excess deaths per 1 million)
Total Spain as at same date: 68,036 (1,455 excess deaths per 1 million)
Spain’s death toll per capita would then be 47.3% higher than the UK’s as at 15 November 2020 based on excess deaths.
I’ll add Belgium here as well as their data runs to 15 November 2020 as well (France, Italy and others don’t have any recent data).
Belgium’s excess deaths as at 15 November 2020 numbered 12,392 (1,067 per 1 million).
Do they? I don’t know. The per capita number would seem to be fairer but even then it’s still open to a number of variables meaning it can’t be relied upon with much certainty.
They were initially, praising how good they were until one of them, who could actually count above 10 realised that drawing comparisons with other nations wasn’t very clever given how badly the UK was doing. Boris even had the gall to turn round and say that comparisons with other countries was the wrong thing to do, a week or so after they had been doing it. The testing figures are also a great example.
It is awkward I agree. Per capita seems logical provided that everyone is counting in the same way which is may not be the case. Counting deaths as a result of Covid is really difficult though. I wonder how many transplant operations have been cancelled and those prospective recipients have died during this mess? While not a direct Covid death, they are certainly as a result of it. Flip side is there’s been less people dying from road accidents etc.
100%. It’s very difficult and unless all countries are counting in the same way then they’re not comparable, at least not accurately. And we know that not all countries are counting deaths in the same way.
Given that I do see why using excess deaths as a guide is potentially attractive, in terms of trying to eliminate the variables from the differing data-gathering methods.
BBC News - Covid: Wales only part of UK without falling coronavirus rates
Time to close the border and keep the Welsh out…I heard business leaders in N Wales being interviewed on Radio Merseyside. They were scathing about Drakeford’s handling of the pandemic.
I think it helps as well, because we well know that Boris wont use those figures. I suspect we may never know the real number.
But what is clear that there is a massive difference between the UK’s figures and elsewhere in the world. It’s tempting to quote Williamson to be honest but I cant sink that low. Given that we knew ti was coming that makes our numbers far worse than could be expected.
Not great sadly. The firebreak didn’t have the desired effect. Part of the issue is that figures up north are under the same restrictions as the south yet the numbers are different (Please note I need to look). The new pub rules did not go down well either.
Why it didn’t work is difficult to pin down I think. It certainly didn’t hep that we were in a semi lock down all alone. It certainly didn’t help that we were open when England wasn’t as well.
It would be inaccurate to portray the UK as an outlier though. Using excess deaths as probably the most reliable and comparable metric its response has been far worse than Germany’s but much better than Spain or Italy’s. Spain (first death on 3 March) had as much notice as we did (first death on 5 March).
Like Mascot I do think comparing countries’ death tolls is a bit tasteless but unfortunately it is necessary for the purposes of learning lessons. It would certainly be fair to describe the UK’s response as being one of the worst but it isn’t close to being the worst. Is that a vote of confidence in the UK government? No it fucking isn’t. It’s still been a shitshow.
Agree. That’s what I was tying to elude to I think. We’re certainly in the top few and given the warning we had that’s not really acceptable, especially when you look back at the decisions, or lack of decisions that were made.
Sadly, counting is the only real way you can hold people to task for what has turned out to be poor decision making.
i think I mentionned a while back the obscene pressure that was being put on those responsible for letting vaccines loose.
You nailed it! Dumb asses all of them. Selfish pricks!