WORRYING new government graphs suggest the UK has a higher coronavirus death rate than France, Italy and Spain.
But differences in how each country reports its data means that the grim-looking comparison might not be quite as it appears.
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This meant Britain appears to have leap-frogged France, which has recorded 23,660 deaths, and Spain, which has had 24,275 deaths, to be just behind Italy, which is on 27,682.
We are still way behind the US, which has suffered the most deadly outbreak in the world, with 59,392 already dead.
However, each country has a different size, has a different way of recording the deaths and is at a different point of the pandemic, which makes direct comparisons difficult.
Coronavirus outbreaks in mainland Europe started a few weeks earlier than in the UK and a new chart released by the Government at its Downing Street press conference this evening shows Britain with a steeper trend in deaths than France, Spain and Italy.
It suggests Britain has a higher death toll today than France, Spain and Italy did at the same point of their outbreaks.
But the UK is bigger than Italy and Spain and slightly smaller than France.
One of the government's other new charts takes population size into account by showing the number of deaths per million people.
Britain has a population of around 66.5 million, meaning we have 392 deaths per million.
The chart shows we have a higher death rate per million people than France and Italy had at the same point of the outbreak, but are behind Spain, which has a much smaller population of 46.9 million people.
However, the death rate in Italy and Spain is higher than the UK when measured up until the present.
The US is much bigger than European countries and despite it suffering the most deaths overall, its outbreak doesn't look as bad once population is taken into account and it comes below us all in the chart.
While these statistics make for grim reading for Brits, it is also vital to take into account the key differences in reporting data in different countries.
Spain, for example, does not currently record care home deaths and only counts cases where there has been a positive test for the virus, so its real death toll may be much higher.
The country's fatality rate of 510 deaths per million makes it the highest overall death rate in Europe but it also has a significantly smaller population than the UK and Italy.
France, with a death rate of 353 per million, also has lags in reporting its care home deaths, which it began to do at the start of this month.
Today's updated UK figures also only include people who have died after testing positive for coronavirus.
Many more people may have died of coronavirus without being tested, meaning the true figure for how many lives the pandemic has claimed in Britain may still be much higher.
This means that measuring the impact of the virus is complex despite the UK now having Europe's second largest death toll.
At the government's daily press briefing, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed that 765 of the new deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours.
He added that the new overall tally includes an additional 3,811 deaths backdated to the start of the outbreak.
Until now, the daily reported figures have only included the number of people who have died in hospitals.
But Raab said today's updated total doesn't "represent a sudden surge in deaths" - but instead helps us measure our toll against other countries' tally.
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The government's new graphic showing deaths 'in all settings' - hospitals, care homes and the wide community - is to give the "most comprehensive picture".
Of the new figures, Dr Yvonne Doyle, Medical Director at PHE, said: “Every death from COVID-19 is a tragedy. Tracking the daily death count is vital to help us understand the impact of the disease.
“These more complete data will give us a fuller and more up to date picture of deaths in England and will inform the government’s approach as we continue to protect the public.
She added: "We are tracking much more alongside our European neighbours".
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In total, 165,221 people have now tested positive for covid-19 in the UK – an increase of 4,076 on yesterday’s number.
Mr Raab assured Brits today: "We are coming through the peak, but we are not there yet".
The Foreign Secretary stressed we must do what we can to avoid a second spike of the bug, adding that it would be "harmful to public health" and lead to more deaths as well as a second lockdown.
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2020-04-29 19:54:50Z
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