April 27, 2020

expert reaction to latest figures on COVID-19 deaths in England

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England have announced the latest reported figures for cases of COVID-19 (157,149 in the UK) and deaths from COVID-19 (21,092 in the UK and 18,749 in England).

On the DHSC UK daily case figures:

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

“The absolute numbers of cases and deaths are of course important – in particular we must of course recognise the devastating effect that these deaths will have on the families and friends of those who have sadly succumbed to this infection. But there are also some important issues to address – in particular why, after 4 weeks of lockdown, are 4310 people newly reported as being identified as SARS-CoV-2 positive in one day?  The demographics and occupations of these people are important to document – are they all elderly and/or vulnerable with underlying health conditions? If so, shouldn’t they have been in complete self-isolation for the period of the lockdown, and in which case how did they get infected? Or are they frontline healthcare workers or people in other essential occupations that risk potential exposure to the virus?  Are there geographic differences?  It may not be possible to trace the potential routes of infection for all of these people, but answering some of these questions may help to understand where the lockdown is working, and where it is failing.  Ultimately that information may help to plan our exit strategy – which activities may be targeted for a relaxation of the stringent rules by which we are presently living our lives.

“It would also be good to see one other statistic in the daily report – the number of people who have recovered and been discharged from hospital.  We would all welcome some positive news!”

On the NHS England death figures:

Prof David Leon, Professor of Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:

“The low numbers of COVID-19 total deaths reported today for England are consistent with a steady decline that has been observed since the peak on April 8. Although there might be a small contribution from reporting delays due to the weekend this does not affect the overall picture that there is a real downward trend. Today’s data confirm that the fall in London has been particularly steep from the peak on April 8. Focussing on hospital deaths that occurred up until April 21 (where we will know nearly all the numbers on that day or earlier), the number of deaths in London have halved from the peak. This compares with a decline of just over a third for England as a whole. Unfortunately the proportional decline seen among people aged 80 years or older is a little less than among those aged 50-79 years. This may reflect the fact that at these ages a disproportionate number of these deaths are due to admissions to hospital from care homes which may not be declining as fast as in the rest of the population.”

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

“The drop in numbers is distorted by the effect of the weekend and it will be some time before we see drop to below 100 deaths per day. I cannot emphasise enough that each one of the 100 will represent a tragedy. This slow decline is in painful and sharp contrast to how quickly we climbed the curve, going from 100 deaths to 1000 deaths in 10 days. We simply cannot return to “normal” without testing, tracing, isolating and some social distancing measures. If we were to do so, the science would suggest we will very quickly be back on the steeply rising curve of infections which will be followed by deaths. The UK has been one of the worst hit countries in the world in this first wave. I doubt anyone has the appetite to run the risk of reliving the last few weeks. Once we fully count the number of deaths in care homes, the death toll will only be more heartbreaking. Government must focus on delivering the testing, tracking and isolating regime. It needs to take advice on what social distancing measures will be tolerable and effective in the longer term. We will all have to play our part. In footballing terms, we are still in the first half.”

Prof Carl Heneghan, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, and Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford, said:

“We have updated today’s data in our analysis: COVID-19: Death Data in England – Update 27th April.

“There is often a dip in data on Sunday and Monday’s that picks up on Tuesdays.

“Today’s figures, however, are consistent with declining COVID death rates since the peak on the 8th of April:

On the 20th of April, 429 deaths were reported in hospitals in England.

On the 13th of April, 667 deaths were reported in hospitals in England.”

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

Declared interests

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