November 10, 2020

expert reaction to the ONS release on deaths registered in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 30 October 2020

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have released provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 30 October 2020.

Dr Simon Clarke, Associate Professor of Cellular Microbiology at the University of Reading, said:

“I’m at a loss to understand why anyone would think that the Covid-19 situation in England isn’t as bad as expected.  In September Chris Whitty was widely criticised and for claiming that there could be “200 deaths a day by mid-November”, theses data just released, for the last week in October, show a weekly death toll of 1,397, an average of 197 per day.  The inclusion of already out of date modelling projections in a recent Downing Street press conference has muddied the waters when it should have been made clearer that lockdown was put in place because the government’s reasonable worst case scenario had been breached.  Making clear what the parameters of that scenario are, would help enormously.”

Dr Stephen Griffin, Associate Professor at the University of Leeds, said:

“The recent ONS figures support that recent increases in SARS-CoV2 infections has led to significantly more people being admitted to hospital after a predicted time lag, and this is now sadly translating into a considerable increase in mortality. The DHSC dashboard shows that the upward trend in hospital admissions and the number of inpatients is at levels similar to that seen in early April. Whilst the number of deaths we are seeing is not as marked as that seen in early April, this likely reflects improvement in critical care pathways, the use of dexamethasone and the improved protection afforded to those most vulnerable in society as a result of the lessons learned from Spring.

“Some might evoke the lower death rate compared to spring as a means to criticise the implementation of a national lockdown in England and other measures across the UK. However, this is woefully misguided. For one, the number of deaths, whilst lower, still represents a tragic consequence of allowing the virus resurgence after losing control of the epidemic for a second time. Second, mortality is certainly not the only consequence of SARS-CoV2 infection and the emphasis on this as a metric against which to balance socioeconomic costs is therefore flawed. Third, lockdowns should be implemented before things get out of control – if they are left too late, as occurred in spring, then the measures need to be more pronounced and long lasting, therefore inflicting more damage to the economy and society.”

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

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

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