April 13, 2020

expert reaction to the 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 (88,621) of and deaths (11,329) from COVID-19 in the UK.

Commenting on the NHS England figures for deaths in England

Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Jason Oke, Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, said:

“Daily reports generally add more to the previous two days (up to a maximum 300 deaths), and can add back to the previous week’s counts.  Consistent with previous analyses, the data continues to flatline consistent with hitting a peak, and the structure of the data is similar across the regions.  Inaccuracies in the data can give rise to considerable uncertainties.  Please see here for full info and graphs: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-1th-april/”

Commenting on the DHSC figures for deaths in the UK

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

“Although the number of deaths in hospital announced today is lower than would have been expected were deaths still following an exponential pattern, the bank holiday and the weekend could have exacerbated the known volatility in these numbers.  We will have to see further data before making any firm judgement as to trends. There are inevitable and variable delays between when deaths occur and when the deaths are announced which also make it very hard to judge the peak number of daily deaths for the UK for the first wave until we have gone past the peak.  I expect that hospital admissions will continue to show social distancing is now clearly reducing the number of infections.

“We should remember that the number of deaths will increase as the deaths in care home and wider community are added.  These are harder to measure quickly but are of course just as tragic.

“We are, I hope, approaching the peak of the first wave of covid19 but this is going to be marathon not a sprint.”

* https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1249693469733421056?s=20

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

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