April 17, 2020

expert reaction to latest figures on COVID-19 cases and deaths in the UK

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) have announced the latest reported figures for cases (108,692) of and deaths (14,576) from COVID-19 in the UK.

An updated summary from Prof Jason Oke, Senior statistician at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences and Prof Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford:

On data from NHS England on deaths in hospitals:

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-17th-april/

Prof James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute and University of Oxford, said:

“Today’s number of announced deaths indicates three things. Firstly, the UK is one of the hardest hit countries in the world from this first wave. Secondly, the UK seems to have passed the peak for the first wave. Finally, we will likely see only a gradual decrease from the peak and this means we will see several hundreds of announced deaths every day for some time ahead. Each one of which will have brought misery to families. As data from the ONS and National Records Scotland show, there are a significant number of deaths that need to be added to these already fearful totals to account for deaths outside hospital. If we do not continue to socially distance, there will be many more deaths. It seems highly likely that we and the world will face further waves of the virus until a vaccine is in use. Facing these future threats requires public support and total honesty about the trade offs that will be involved in government decisions. I think everyone now realises just how fast this pandemic can move and what the stakes are.”

Prof Mark Harris, Professor of Virology, University of Leeds, said:

“It is good to see that the number of tests conducted every day seems to be increasing, although there is still a long way to go to reach the goal of 100,000 per day by end of April.   However, in comparing the number of tests and the number of people tested over the last 24 hours it appears that over 7000 people were tested more than once in that 24 hour period – it would be useful to know in what circumstances people are tested again and the reason(s) for this.  Related to this, does the number of ‘positives’ refer to tests or people?”

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink: www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

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