England will join the rest of the UK and disregard a COVID-19 diagnosis if the death occurs 28 days after the test
The way the government counts up how many people in England have died from COVID-19 will be changing amid concerns that the previous system that was in place is “misleading”.
Figures for England will now be coming into line with the rest of the UK nations by imposing a 28-day cut off period for counting coronavirus-related fatalities.
As of today, the number of all deaths in those patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the UK is at 41,329 fatalities. That figure has now been revised down from 46,706 following the changes.
The UK’s Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has ordered an investigation into the methodology being used by Public Health England (PHE) to gather and present the nation’s daily death statistics.
This comes after Gavin Williamson has said that the education and care of the country’s children is “a national priority” as the government plans to return students to schools throughout England in September.
Previously anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19 ever in England was automatically registered as a coronavirus-related death when they died, whether or not their death was likely to be caused by something other than the virus.
Scotland and Wales impose a cut-off period of 28 days following a positive test of the coronavirus, so any death after this period is not assumed to be virus-related.
Director at Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Professor Carl Heneghan, wants to see a cut-off period of 21 days in England.
“The real job is to make precise, accurate data and put that out there. Now, if you’re doing that and it’s misleading, as the government has recognised with the Public Health England data, it’s right for them to say we now understand this data is inaccurate and it’s misleading the public.
“We’re going to put a pause on that. It’s important when they do that, we don’t admonish them.”
This comes after company payrolls have dropped by 730,000 since the start of the COVID-19 national lockdown as the UK braces for a feared growth in unemployment as many have lost their jobs amid the coronavirus crisis.
He added: “We say it was wrong, but it’s more important we fix it. We get a more appropriate measure. So, for instance, in Scotland, they are only counting the deaths that occurred within 28 days of the test.
“Now, that’s what we do normally. If you have an operation, you say the death was related to this operation if it occurred within 30 days.
“If you had another respiratory infection like influenza, we count it within 28 days. It is meaningless to provide data to say you had a test six months ago and today you walked in front of a bus and you died from that.”
