The british prime minister Boris Johnson
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July 17, 2020 8: 45 am
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A study suggests an overestimation of the number of dead from the COVID-19 in the United Kingdom
Agence France-Presse
LONDON – And if the balance sheet for the british COVID-19 was less high than it seems ? The british government has called Friday an “urgent review” of the way in which are recorded the deaths of the coronavirus, after the publication of a study suggesting a possible overvaluation.
With 45.000 dead, the Uk is the country most hard hit in Europe by the new coronavirus, and the management of the crisis by the conservative government of Boris Johnson is roundly criticized.
The hare has been lifted by the university of Oxford, in a study entitled “Why no one can ever heal the COVID-19 in England – a statistical anomaly”.
Depending on the method used by the health authorities in england (Public Health England – PHE), “a patient who has been declared positive, but was treated successfully and was able to leave the hospital will be counted as the death of the COVID, even if he has had a heart attack or be crushed by a bus three months later.”
“The minister of Health,” Matt Hancock “has asked Public Health England to conduct an urgent review of the way death statistics are reported, in order to bring more clarity on the number of deaths linked to the COVID-19”, announced the ministry in a press release.
When a patient dies, the central register for the NHS, the public health service to the british warned. The list of all the confirmed cases is reviewed each day to check whether patients are dead.
“PHE does not seem to take account of the date of the test result COVID, or the fact that the person has been treated successfully and released from the hospital. Any person who has tested positive for the COVID, but which subsequently died, whatever the cause, is included in the figures of deaths COVID PHE”, raises the study.
It stresses that it is time to “fix this error in statistics, which leads to an over-exaggeration of the deaths associated with Covid” and is proposing to retain the death outside the hospital environment that would occur within 21 days of a positive test.
The authors of the publication emphasize, however, that it has not been the subject of an evaluation by a reading committee.
