Government Unable To Explain Discrepancies In Number Of Coronavirus-Related Deaths
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The government has been unable to explain a series of discrepancies in the number of people dying after testing positive for coronavirus each day as the crisis unfolds.
As of last week, 2pm has been the daily time that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is meant to announce how many people with confirmed Covid-19 have died in hospital.
The figures are supposed to account for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as a whole, accurate as of 5pm the previous day in order to give the department enough time to collate and verify the reports.
It is perhaps the single most important number in measuring the disease’s effect on the UK. As tech entrepreneur Gruff Davies told HuffPost UK last week: “Deaths is the only reliable statistic. [...] The infection rates are basically too unreliable and too volatile.”
But despite the huge significance of the figure, the number from the DHSC has never once matched the individual reports from public health bosses in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
The total number of deaths across the UK is announced in two ways: through the DHSC’s data release at 2pm, and in separate announcements from each of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom, which come throughout the day (though also mostly clustered around 2pm).
Every day these figures fail to align. On Thursday, the DHSC said that, as of 5pm the previous day, 2,921 people had died from coronavirus. Yet adding England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland’s totals gave a total of 2,977 deaths – some 56 extra.
A DHSC spokesperson pointed out that each devolved administration actually releases those figures at slightly different times, suggesting they might not all cover the period 5pm to 5pm.
But – with the exception of Wednesday this week – it actually appears the Scottish and Northern Irish figures have simply been...
