Urgent review into the ‘flawed’ way daily death figures are calculated

HEALTH SECRETARY Matt Hancock has ordered an urgent review into how Public Health England (PHE) calculates daily Covid-19 death figures.

It comes after researchers criticised “statistical flaws” in the way the deaths are reported across England, saying they are left looking far worse than any other part of the UK.

PHE’s figures feed into the daily death statistics published by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC).

The daily DHSC data represents the number of reported deaths of people who have tested positive for Covid-19, who have died in all settings.

But Professors Yoon Loke, from the University of East Anglia, and Carl Heneghan, from the University of Oxford, said PHE looks at whether a person has ever tested positive and whether they are still alive at a later date.

This means anyone who has ever tested positive and then dies is included in death figures, even if they have died from something else.

Scotland and Northern Ireland use a 28-day cut-off.

They also said that about 80,000 recovered patients in the community are continuing to be monitored for the daily death statistics, even though many are elderly and may die of an unrelated cause.

The national daily recording of deaths was paused yesterday, but one Yorkshire death was recorded, bringing the region’s total to 2,871.

Dr Susan Hopkins, PHE’s incident director, said: “Although it may seem straightforward, there is no World Health Organisation agreed method of counting deaths from Covid-19.”