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On the 5h May 2020, Nick Triggle reports

The UK now has the highest number of coronavirus deaths in Europe, according to the latest government figures.

There have been 29,427 deaths recorded across the UK – a figure Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said was “a massive tragedy”.

The latest total for Italy, previously the highest in Europe, now stands at 29,315.

But experts say it could be months before full global comparisons can be made.

Both Italy and the UK record the deaths of people who have tested positive for coronavirus. 

BBC head of statistics Robert Cuffe said Britain reached this figure faster in its epidemic than Italy.

But he said there are caveats in making such a comparison, including the UK population being about 10% larger than Italy’s.

Each country also has different testing regimes, with Italy conducting more tests than the UK to date.

Speaking at the daily coronavirus briefing, Mr Raab said the 29,427 lives lost was “a massive tragedy” the country has “never seen before… on this scale, in this way”.

But he would not be drawn on international comparisons, saying: “I don’t think we will get a real verdict on how well countries have done until the pandemic is over, and particularly until we get comprehensive international data on all-cause mortality.”

Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, of the University of Cambridge, said we can be “certain” that all reported figures are “substantial underestimates” of the true number who have died with the virus.

He said: “We can safely say that none of these countries are doing well, but this is not Eurovision and it is pointless to try and rank them.”

He added the “only sensible comparison is by looking at excess all-cause mortality, adjusted for the age distribution of the country” [but] “even then it will be very difficult to ascribe the reasons for any differences.”

This is a sobering moment. Italy was the first part of Europe to see cases rise rapidly, and the scenes of hospitals being overwhelmed were met with shock and disbelief.

But we should be careful how we interpret the figures. 

On the face of it, both countries now count deaths in a similar way, including both in hospitals and the community.

But there are other factors to consider.

First, the UK has a slightly larger population. If you count cases per head of population, Italy still comes out worse – although only just.

Cases are confirmed by tests – and the amount of testing carried out varies.

The geographical spread looks quite different too – half of the deaths in Italy have happened in Lombardy.

In the UK, by comparison, they have been much more spread out. Less than a fifth have happened in London, which has a similar population to Lombardy.

Then, how do you factor in the indirect impact from things such as people not getting care for other conditions?

The fairest way to judge the impact in terms of fatalities is to look at excess mortality – the numbers dying above what would normally happen.

You need to do this over time. It will be months, perhaps even years, before we can really say who has the highest death toll.

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Read whole article in the BBC News
With reports also in The Guardian
with excellent graphs and analysis of European responses

On the 4th May 2020, Owen Jones reports and on the 6th May similar sentiments in RT News

Editors Note: In a world of swirling conspiracy theories this post brings together various threads that suggest misrepresentation of the UK governments handling of the covid-19 pandemic and that mainstream media either through naive acceptance or some form of complicit behaviour is allowing this misrepresentation to flourish. Included is Nils Melzer explaining that strong independent journalism is a basic pillar of democracy.

1. The prurient headlines about Neil Ferguson are a huge distraction (Owen Jones for The Guardian 4th May)

Britain’s coronavirus death rate is the worst in Europe, yet the front pages of our rightwing media focus on a scientist’s sex life

When deciding today’s front pages, newspapers had a choice: do they hold the government to account over Britain facing the highest death toll in Europe, or do they take aim at a government scientist, who ignored his own advice to the public, and invited a partner to his home? As you might have seen, the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Metro and the Sun opted for the latter. In a healthy, functioning democracy, a genuinely free press would not have considered this a dilemma. Bad news, everyone, because that’s not the country we live in.

This story could be seen as a run-of-the-mill scoop, a classic tale of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do hypocrisy, a staple of the British press. Or it could be perceived as a retaliatory hit by the political right who resent, to varying degrees of intensity, a lockdown that values human life over economic considerations.

This is where the Neil Ferguson saga raises troubling questions. This story somehow found its way to the Telegraph, a hawkishly pro-Conservative newspaper (and until recently the employer of the prime minister himself) more than a month after the event. Ferguson’s partner visited him on 30 March and 8 April: 37 and 28 days ago respectively. Whatever the reason for this delay, the story has certainly come at a politically opportune moment: when the government should be being scrutinised about a death toll exceeding that of Italy, whose plight just weeks ago was discussed in near-apocalyptic tones.

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2. Burying bad news? Questions raised as scientist sex scandal eclipses news UK Covid-19 death toll surpasses Italy ( RT News 6th May)

As the Neil Ferguson scandal dominates headlines across the UK media, many online are questioning the rather conspicuous timing of the revelations, which coincide with grim and embarrassing news for the government.

The one-time UK coronavirus tsar Ferguson resigned in disgrace from his position as advisor and strategist to 10 Downing Street on Tuesday night amid revelations of a tryst with a married woman, 38-year-old Antonia Starts, which contravened his own proposed lockdown and social distancing measures. 

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Eyebrows were raised over the questionable timing of the revelation, which coincided with the day that the UK officially overtook Italy as the epicenter of the coronavirus in Europe. 

Dr. Anthony Costello, a former director at the World Health Organization, asked: “Why was this non-news released on the day our death rates overtook Italy? And before imminent decisions to lift the lockdown in the UK and US? Who else will be scapegoated?”

Ferguson’s perceived scapegoating was made even more conspicuous as lockdown measures are expected to begin scaling back in the coming weeks, something which Boris Johnson hinted at during a session in the House of Commons on Wednesday. 

Others highlighted yet more examples of the conspicuous timing of human interest stories eclipsing major coronavirus developments – including the birth of Boris Johnson’s son – though that may be more a case of British media’s editorial decision-making than governmental conspiracy. 

“Care Home deaths added to the death toll on the day Boris’s son is born – Govt waited for the right moment,” wrote one perturbed Twitter user. “On the day UK overtakes Italy in deaths, Neil Ferguson is scapegoated.” 

Some highlighted the fact that the Telegraph got the scoop on the Ferguson love affair as being rather convenient, given that Boris Johnson was once employed by the paper. 

Others outright accused the press of complicity with the government, insinuating the British media sat on the story for a month. For now at least, the one-time paragon of viral virtue has been hung out to dry, as the UK struggles to come to terms with its botched response to the pandemic.

3. Boris Johnson’s Coronavirus Lies Are Killing Britons (Sonia Faleiro for The Intercept May 1st)

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When the first cases of Covid-19 in the U.K. were confirmed in late January, Johnson’s Conservative Party government claimed that it was prepared for any eventuality.

That turns out to have been a lie. The government’s failure to provide sufficient protective gear, which has so far contributed to the deaths of at least 114 health care workers in Britain, was  preventable. Moreover, two separate investigations have now revealed high-level attempts to cover it up.

Earlier this week, the BBC’s Panorama showed that the British government’s pandemic stockpile lacked key equipment, such as gowns, visors, swabs, and body bags. The government was of course aware of this deficit and yet, even after the pandemic hit the country’s shores, U.K. leaders refused multiple opportunities to bulk-buy PPE. When the lack of supplies became obvious to the public, the government tried to hide the problem by inflating PPE numbers, counting one pair of gloves as two items of PPE.

Another investigation, by the Sunday Times, a decidedly right-leaning newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch that has previously swooned over Johnson, calling him a “rockstar,” showed just how casually the prime minister confronted the pandemic.

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4. Boris Johnson declares UK ‘past the peak’ as another 647 die from coronavirus (NBC News 1st May)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the UK is “past the peak” of its coronavirus outbreak and has promised a comprehensive plan for restarting the country’s flagging economy.

Mr Johnson, fronting his first daily press conference in more than a month after recovering from COVID-19, urged Britons to hold firm during the strict lockdown and not “risk a second spike” of the virus.

“I can confirm today that for the first time, we are past the peak of this disease,” Mr Johnson said from Downing Street.

Editors Addenda: Daily Recorded Infections charts sourced from John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre

UK Daily Recorded Infections – oscillates between 4K and 6K with a horizontal trend from 5th April to 7th May.

Italy Daily Recorded Infections – peaks at 21st March reducing constantly from the peak of 6.6K per day to less than 1.5K at May 7th.

Editors Observations: The Prime Minister Boris Johnson is either confused by the statistics or attempting to deceiving the public when he says “we are past the peak” on the 1st May

5. Democracy cannot coexist with secrecy (Nil Melzer on RT News on Going Underground).

On 21st April 2020 Juliet Rix interviews Richard Garside

The director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies says our government’s approach is putting prisoners and the public at risk

“Inaction by government on Covid-19 in UK prisons is putting not just prisoners’ lives at risk but also prison staff, and the general public,” says Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, which has just launched a Europe-wide project to collate and compare the measures taken by different governments and prison systems.

“If you set out to create an institution with the express intent of concentrating and transmitting Covid-19, it would probably look much like a prison,” he adds, especially one as overcrowded as many in the UK.

Richard Coker, a leading epidemiologist and emeritus professor of public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, agrees. He describes prisons as “epidemiological pumps”.

To deal with overcrowding, prisons have been told to “cohort”– quarantine sick prisoners together. “But without proper testing,” Garside points out, “this will be putting people with ordinary colds and flu in with Covid-19 cases and risking lives.” 

Cells may also be treated as households, so if one inmate develops symptoms, all occupants of that cell have to isolate together. “And some cells do not even have the facilities to wash your hands,” he adds.

“Even a short sentence for a minor crime is potentially a death sentence, puts staff at ongoing risk and provides a pool of reinfection for the wider community.”

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Read article in The Guardian

On then 28th April 2020, Danny Shaw reports

The number of prisoners believed to have been infected with coronavirus may be up to six times as many as the published figure, it has emerged. 

Public Health England (PHE) says it has found 1,783 “possible/probable” cases – on top of 304 confirmed infections across jails in England and Wales. 

PHE’s report says there have been no “explosive outbreaks” in prisons, but “significant threat levels” remain. 

Measures to quarantine new and at-risk inmates are needed for a year, it adds.

The report, published by the Ministry of Justice, says access to testing for prisoners has been “limited and variable”. 

“Therefore, the number of laboratory confirmed cases reported does not represent the true burden of infection in the prison system,” it said.

“During outbreaks, where a number of positive laboratory samples have been received (usually around five or more) on prisoners who have been swabbed, then subsequent cases who meet the clinical case definition are included as ‘possible/probable cases’.”

Of the 1,783 “possible/probable” cases by the end of last week:

• 398 were in Welsh prisons
• 298 in the West Midlands
• 264 in south-east England

Wales also had more confirmed cases (77) than anywhere else.

PHE said officials had responded to outbreaks in 75 different “custodial institutions”, with 35 inmates treated in hospital and 15 deaths. 

But the report says the frequency of outbreaks and the number of cases is reducing, indicating that the initial wave of infections is being “contained effectively” – which it says is a “cause for cautious optimism”. 

Previous modelling suggested there could be between 1,800 and 2,300 deaths, depending on reductions in the prisoner population.

Read whole article in BBC news
Also on BBC News

• Prisoners’ families fear ‘death sentences’ over virus
• Virus response scheme sees only 33 prisoners released

In early May 2020, RT News reports

• Poorest in England MORE THAN TWICE as likely to die from Covid-19 as richest
• ‘Trying every trick in the book’: UK government changes rules to hit 100k coronavirus tests target
• US should have spent half its military budget on healthcare system instead of missiles

Poor most vulnerable

New UK figures show that the deadly coronavirus does indeed discriminate in unequal societies, and badly, revealing that Covid-19 deaths in the most deprived areas of England are over double the amount in the least deprived areas.

Data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Friday reveal the shocking consequences of being poor in England. For deaths involving Covid-19 between March 1 and April 17, the mortality rate in the most deprived areas was 55.1 deaths per 100,000 population, compared to 25.3 deaths in the least deprived areas.

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Editor’s Note: It would be interesting to see the prison statistics included in this report to see he disparity in risk between Judge Baraitser and the prosecution versus Julian Assange

Editor’s Note: Reading at the twitter thread above it is possible the death rate may be affected by relative risk of catching covid-19 ( say information or density ) and the death rate upon being infected may be more informative

Coronavirus Testing Rule Change

In its scramble to hit the target of 100,000 Covid-19 tests a day by the end of April, the UK government has revised the way it counts them, the Health Service Journal (HSJ) reports. UK health officials deny the claim.

A test would previously only have been counted in its tally once the sample had been processed in a laboratory, but that’s changed in the past few days, a senior source told the HSJ.

It’s alleged that the Department of Health and Social Care is now also including in its official numbers those tests that have simply been mailed out, regardless of whether the sample has been returned by the recipient. 

We’re now counting a home test as tests which have been sent to people’s homes.

HSJ reports that up to 50,000 of the tests that will be registered as having taken place by the landmark date of April 30 will actually only have been mailed. That figure will also include those home tests that recipients have merely agreed to receive in the randomized trial being undertaken across England.

In the past week, 23–30 April, the number of ‘actual tests’ reported by the government has increased dramatically, from 23,560 to 81,611.

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Health Care versus Missiles Cost Benefit

The Covid-19 pandemic should be a rallying call to change an economic system that spends billions each year on the tools of war but can’t produce a decent healthcare system, bestselling author John Perkins told RT.

Perkins is best known for his book ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,’ in which he describes how American corporate elites plunder other nations to enrich themselves.

The economic system that puts immediate gains above all else, which Perkins calls an “economy of death” may be as lethal to common Americans as to people in Latin America or Eastern Asia, he said in an interview with RT Spanish. One only needs to look at the death toll of the Covid-19 epidemic in the US to see the proof.

“Our annual military budget is something between $600 billion and $700 billion. But we’ve just spent about $3 trillion to fight coronavirus. If we had spent half of that military budget over the last 10 years creating a better healthcare system in this country, we would all be better off now. The world would be better off,” he said.

The big flaw of the current arrangement is that corporations don’t suffer financially for inflicting long-term damage.

“In a way, it boils down to the driving force behind the ‘death economy,’ which is to maximize the short-term profits regardless of social or environmental costs,” Perkins said.

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