How does UK’s Covid death toll REALLY compare to rest of the world?,
The UK’s Covid Inquiry yesterday delivered a damning verdict that a ‘toxic and chaotic culture’ at the centre of government meant the pandemic response was ‘too little, too late’.
Lockdowns could have been ‘avoided entirely’ during the pandemic had ministers reacted more quickly to the emerging threat of the virus, it also concluded.
After examining 180,000 documents and hearing from 166 witnesses, Baroness Hallett, the Inquiry’s chair, said that if measures including contact tracing, self-isolation, face coverings had been put in place before March 16, 2020, there might have been no need for a lockdown.
Instead, the UK suffered more than 200,000 Covid deaths by early 2023.
Now, figures analysed by the Daily Mail, show exactly how the UK fared against the rest of the world in its fight against the devastating virus.
Excess deaths, sometimes known as extra deaths, are the number of deaths that are above the average for the same period in previous years.
The figure includes fatalities from all causes.
The method is considered the most consistent way to measure pandemic death tolls because official Covid deaths vary between countries due to differences in logging data.
Understanding the failings in the UK’s gathering of Covid data gives an insight into why other countries’ data may be unreliable.
Only months after the first British lockdown was implemented did health officials include people from care homes or those who died at home, and also only counted people who had officially tested positive.
According to excess death figures between January 2020 and May 2023 — when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid was no longer a public health emergency of international concern — the UK fared 65th worst of all 237 countries.
It logged an extra 346 deaths per 100,000 people.
The US was worse, reporting 397 deaths placing it in 51st position. Bulgaria took top spot with a grim 1,048 excess deaths per 100,000 people.
By comparison, Australia reported 120 extra deaths, putting the nation 193rd.
Spain followed the UK in 66th spot with 339 deaths per 100,000.
Neighbouring European nation France, meanwhile, recorded 222 deaths and 122nd place.
Ireland was 138th with 186 deaths per 100,000.
In Sweden, which controversially chose not to implement a lockdown and instead relied heavily on trusting residents to use their ‘common sense’, there were an extra 185 deaths than expected, giving it a ranking of 139th.
New Zealand and Luxembourg were among the most successful to keep excess deaths to a minimum, logging 10 and 25 extra deaths per 100,000 people respectively.
This placed them 224th and 229th.
In her damning second Inquiry report yesterday, Lady Hallett concluded that the first lockdown which started on March 23, 2020, ‘might have been shorter or not necessary at all’ if restrictions had been brought in sooner — even by just a week.
She wrote: ‘Had a mandatory lockdown been imposed on or immediately after 16 March 2020, modelling shows that in England alone there would have been approximately 23,000 fewer deaths in the first wave’.
The death toll in this period ‘would have been reduced by 48 per cent’, she said.
Other findings in her 760-page report included that Boris Johnson was too slow and ‘should have appreciated sooner that this was an emergency that required prime ministerial leadership’.
Sir Christopher Wormald — now running the civil service for Sir Keir Starmer — presided over ‘misleading assurances’ when he was in charge of the health department about the UK being prepared, she said.
He also failed to correct ‘overenthusiastic’ Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s false promises to 10 Downing Street about having the crisis under control.
And the vast majority of children were not at risk of serious direct harm from Covid, ‘but suffered greatly from the closure of schools and requirement to stay at home’.
Children ‘were not always prioritised’ and the government was not prepared for the ‘sudden and enormous task’ of educating children at home.
