Tuesday April 28th


  • Panorama exposes Government failings over Covid-19
  • PM says other countries could learn from the UK
  • ONS  figures suggest at least 22% of deaths not in official figures
  • Leaked report shows that Government were warned of pandemic and chose to ignore it 
  • Over 3 million people worldwide have the virus
  • It is likely that over 27,000 people in the UK have died from Covid-19


"Current success"? - this is the way the Tories are spinning their undoubted mishandling of the crisis. From ignoring their own Operation Cygnus recommendations to invest in PPE, to following a herd immunity strategy when no vaccine was available, to seemingly not quite understanding that The WHO is an international health organisation not a past-its-best rock group, everything the Government has done points to major inadequacies in their preparation and approach. Under normal circumstances being incompetent in Government is serious and it can cost lives, but on this occasion having advance warnings which were simply brushed aside, is reckless and has put the entire nation at risk.

UK Death Stats





DateDays since first death
27/04/202053
Deaths
UK (Hospital deaths)21,092
UK deaths adjusted to include non-hospital deaths27,244
New hospital deaths (official)360
New deaths adjusted to include care homes2533
Death Rate (hospital deaths)13.42
Adjusted death rate17.34
Increase in deaths over previous day (%)1.7

Notes:

The official count of 21,092 is the number of deaths in hospitals since March when the first death from Covid-19 was reported.
But as David Ottewell reports in The New Statesman: 

"Just because a patient’s death is reported on a particular day, this doesn’t mean that it happened on that day."

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) gives information on 'where' people have died. This allows us to see what proportion of Covid-19 deaths are happening in care homes or other community settings. As of today, that figure is 22.3% of the total.The ONS data uses cause of death as reported on death certificates. The current data includes death certificates issued up to 17th April. In other words, it is about 2 weeks out of date.Death rate, as recorded here, is the number of deaths divided by the number of confirmed cases.The problem here is "confirmed cases" as currently these are only those who have tested positive.Tests are, of course, only being carried out on a small sample of the population (mostly key workers) and as such we have no way of knowing infection rates in the wider population.

Tests carried out in the UK

Tests carried out UK
Total tests carried out    719,910 
  in last 24 hours50,060
How many less than Governments target49,940
People tested568,768
Negative (n/%)72
Positive (n/%)28
  average per day since first death10,731
Percent population UK tested0.86%


The Government have, foolishly (see above regarding their basic competence), committed to carrying out 100,000 tests a day by the end of April. As you can see from the figures above they are just over half way to that number. 

They have 2 days to increase tests by 100%. Given that the website set up to allow key workers the opportunity to have a test predictably crashed, you have to be a certain kind of optimist to believe that this is going to happen.

The 'good' news here is that the negative tests are starting to increase, and as a result positive tests are starting to go down. However, the obvious caveat is that the tests have been extended to include far more people who have shown no symptoms. Having said that, the people being tested are precisely those most at risk of contracting the disease at work as they are key workers.


Ben Walker's article in The New Statesman is worth a look if you want an explanation of how the numbers don't quite add up. A feature of what I write about here.
You can find it by following this link. It is called:


I spent a couple of days redesigning this blog page with the intention of making it easier to read. I hope I've succeeded. I have plans to do a few more changes over the coming week. Thanks for your patience and please don't forget that I blog each week on politics on the sister blog to this one: Thinking and Doing




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