Item — HN Reader

You're looking at the total number of deaths, not the death rate per capita.

Every country has a different population size which means the total number of deaths needs to be normalised in order to be comparable.

Belgium has the highest death rate per million population in Europe - 79.25

The UK is 4th in Europe behind Belgium, Spain and then Italy.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

The fact we're 4th does warrant some concern as Spain and Italy were hit hard before us.

But then all these death statistics are compiled using different definitions anyway, so there's no useful direct comparison right now.

Belgium, for example, include all suspected covid deaths in their figures whereas the UK does not.

So probably best not to jump to conclusions until some thorough and rigorous global modelling/analysis has taken place.

2 comments

Your link is talking about "confirmed cases". Belgium is high in that list because they do a lot of testing inside and outside hospital, and so many of the people who die of covid-19 have had a test to confirm that, and because Belgium is including deaths that happen outside hospital.

The UK however has only just started testing people outside hospital, and has only just started including deaths outside hospital in its figures. (And even then, not all cases confirmed by tests are included. We have a complex system of "pillars" and only some of those are included). Yet, despite not including all deaths, we're still 4th in the table.

If you look at excess death rates, Belgium is still 1rst in europe (and UK second), both with over 60% a week ago.

Within a small area with a >40% IR, the excess death rate reached 270% (in France), so it could be worse, but it still bad.

From the linked article Germany's per capita death rate is a fifth of the UK's.