Remember the day the UK overtook Italy to became the world’s third most affected country by Covid-19 ? It if feels it was just a week or so ago, your internal clock is correct, as it was on May 24th.
UK data does not include ONS excess deaths.
Source: Worldometers.info
On June 1st, the UK started to ease the lockdown measures, the same day that 111 people were announced as victims of Covid-19, along with 1590 newly infected. In fact, since May 12th, it has consistently been on the top 2 of the European countries with most daily fatalities per capita, and since May 19th disputes the spot with Sweden, although Sweden has taken the top spot every single day since May 25th. Nevertheless, when comparing the UK’s daily fatality rate with the other most affected countries, namely Spain, the UK shows a huge “advantage”.
As such, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the UK would climb another step, overtaking Spain, to become the world’s second most affected country by Covid-19, as measured by fatalities per capita, behind Belgium. Today, the UK reached 58.03 fatalities per 100 000 inhabitants versus Spain’s 58.02.
Yet, UK’s fatality rate still significantly exceeds that of Belgium. If we consider that Belgium excessive deaths can totally be explained by Covid-19’s victims, the UK will like get very near that infamous top spot, or even take it.
Source: Worldometers.info
Reaching this milestone on the same week confinement measures relax and schools open, makes it all more striking. Plus, the number of daily fatalities per capita stubbornly fails to significantly drop below other countries, having almost flat lined for the past three weeks. Now, if we consider the fact that Spain, the previous second spot holder, is now announcing single digit daily fatalities, and most specifically zero since June 1st, and is only now opening up, makes the recent government decision far harder to justify.