Understatement is not a charming national characteristic in this case. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) – which does a weekly update to take into account the deaths that have taken place outside hospital – has just published the following.

Our data shows that of all deaths in England and Wales that occurred up to 3 April (registered up to 11 April), 6,235 involved COVID-19 compared with the 4,093 deaths reported on 4 April 2020 by @DHSCgovuk http://ow.ly/4kHD50zdo9L

So for the week ending 3 April the total Coronavirus deaths in the UK were half as high again as those being announced by the government. 6,235. Not 4,093. That looks like this. the daily totals announced in the press briefings are just the blue part of the circle. Bear the in mind every time a new figure is announced.

While including these on a daily basis would be very difficult – and attempts to do so in France have led to wild fluctuations in daily totals that make trends harder to discern – these additional deaths should be factored in; and the provisional nature of the daily figures made clear at the daily press briefings.

With many of the most vulnerable elderly people in particular pre-triaged not to take up hospital beds and reports of significant spread of infections within Care Homes – where staff are even less likely to have proper PPE than front line medics – this gap could well grow in the next week.

The rate at which the UK and US are taking an increasing share of the daily deaths can be seen here in the FT.  https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest.

My next post will look at these death rates per capita.