In some ways, headlines (including on this blog) that said the UK now has the highest death toll in Europe are completely right, after stats released today took the country’s official death toll to more than 32,000, higher than Italy. But in other ways, writes Michael Goodier, data journalist at New Statesman media group, trying to rank the UK among other European countries “is comparing apples with oranges”.
“Other countries, such as Italy, have not published up-to-date statistics using the same death certificate methodology as the UK, meaning that their deaths total is likely to rise once these are published in the future,” he writes.
“At present we can only compare the UK’s figures with the daily numbers released by other countries of people dying after being confirmed to have Covid-19 – figures which exclude a significant number of deaths.”
You can read his highly informative article here.
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