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Seems to be a bit of controversy brewing regarding the Covid-19 death figures that Matt Hancock reported during today's daily briefing.
This evening, Hancock told the public an additional 111 people have died with Covid-19, taking the overall figure to 39,045. However, he neglected to mention that yesterday's reported figure was 38,489, meaning the overall figure has in fact increased by 556. The new figure apparently includes an historical correction of an additional 445 deaths.
Whether this omission from Hancock was deliberate or not is open to debate. However, the new figures only serve to further highlight just how poorly the UK governments have dealt with this pandemic.
The current figures for the major European countries are as follows:
39,045 - UK
33,475 - Italy
28,833 - France
27,127 - Spain
9,486 - Belgium
8,618 - Germany
5,962 - Netherlands
4,855 - Russia
4,403 - Sweden
1,650 - Ireland
Regardless of any political allegiances, those UK numbers are shocking.
Remember when we were looking at Italy like it was a terrible warzone not that long ago.
Funny how it hasn’t been reported like that here.
What I do remember is one of the experts (perhaps Chris Whitty?) saying fairly early on that the UK will have done well if we can keep the deaths figure under 20,000......
It sounds a bit like north wales suddenly finding an extra 80 odd deaths about a month ago. These people must really think people don't look at what they put up. I suppose it doesn't alter the deaths for yesterday except that the more they are manipulated the less they can be believed.
Some of those countries are not including carehome or at home deaths.
Found it. It wasn't Whitty. It was Valance and Powis:
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...d-now-11978609
For those who still want to see things in party political terms, I'll say that the figures in Wales are dreadful (six out of the top ten worst districts for rate of infection according to this
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...cases-near-you
and getting worse it would appear when compared to other areas of the country). Therefore, like many left leaning contributors on here, I have no problem with being critical of Welsh Labour, because, while there is evidence in those figures that the danger is easing in the other countries in the UK, it looks like Wales is stuck and so it would be stupid to slavishly defend the Welsh Government.
However, I do have some sympathy with Drakeford and co because we are not truly independent. If we were, it would be a different matter, but, in some respects, the Welsh Government is having to tackle the virus with one hand tied behind its back because it is still beholding to the UK Government. That's why, if we are playing the blame game, I still hold the UK Government more responsible for the high figures in this country.
Also, as pointed out earlier in this thread, the Ferguson modelling was a projection of what would have happened if there had been no intervention from Government (in essence, if we had relied on herd immunity and just allowed the virus to have run its course). Its relevance stemmed from the fact it seems to be the one single thing that persuaded the UK Government to ignore advice advocating a herd immunity approach, but, once that decision was taken, it became irrelevant straight away because it referred to a set of circumstances that no longer applied.