The United Kingdom on Wednesday August 12 changed its way of counting deaths due to the coronavirus epidemic - now only taking into account those occurring within 28 days after a positive test - and claims according to this new method a lower toll of 5,300 deaths compared to the previous one.
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The methodology for identifying deaths from the epidemic in the province of England " has been reviewed by independent researchers " and the English health authorities (PHE), the Department of Health said in a report. communicated. " From today ", PHE will align itself with the health services of the other three British provinces and will publish daily the number of people who have died from Covid-19 in " the 28 days after being tested positive in the laboratory ", a indicated the Ministry of Health, specifying that 88% of deaths already recorded by PHE had occurred during this period.
So far, its daily report took into account all the deaths of people who had tested positive for the new coronavirus, without a time limit. This change in method comes in the wake of criticism by a study from the University of Oxford, entitled " Why no one can ever be cured of Covid-19 in England - a statistical anomaly ".
46,706 deaths previously announced
" A patient who has tested positive, but has been treated successfully, will be counted as dead from Covid even if he had a heart attack or was run over by a bus three months later ", denounced the study published in mid-July, which asked to " repair this statistical error leading to an over-exaggeration of deaths associated with Covid ".
With the adoption of the new method, the Department of Health claims that " the total number of patients who died in the UK within 28 days after a positive Covid-19 test was 41,329 people on Wednesday ", against the 46,706 dead previously announced by health authorities.
" The way we counted the deaths of people with Covid-19 was originally chosen to avoid underestimating deaths caused by the virus in the early stages of the epidemic, " explained Professor John Newton , from PHE, arguing that the new method will collect " crucial information on recent trends and global mortality ". Even with this new count, the United Kingdom remains the country in Europe with the most deaths due to the epidemic, far ahead of Italy and its 35,225 deaths.
