As the UK has climbed the tables that count the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in each country, it has become obvious that it is one of the worst affected countries globally.
The UK has passed countries that suffered severe early outbreaks such as China, Italy and Spain in numbers of coronavirus deaths. Whilst the quality of official data varies dramatically between countries, the only assessment for the UK governments’ response to the pandemic is now poor.
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As the UK government has rightly pointed out, however, the true test of the damage done will come from the statistics that measure the total number of excess deaths above the usual average. By that measure, according to the ONS, the UK has now exceeded 55,000 additional deaths since the beginning of the year.
