Thank you for contacting me about the compilation and release of statistics for the number of people who have sadly died as a result of Covid-19.
The difficulties and anxiety felt by everyone in this crisis will be much amplified for residents of care homes and their loved ones with particular concerns arising for the families of people with dementia. I do sympathise very much.
Given the level of public concern, it is vital that the Government continues to update the public with the latest advice and information as regularly as possible, which is why it is holding daily news conferences in addition to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care's regular statements in Parliament, ensuring that the press, members of the public and other MPs have plenty of opportunities to ask questions and seek further information.
When discussing statistics, it is extremely important that we compare data drawn from comparable and reliable sources. The number of people who have died in all settings is being released by the Department of Health and Social Care on a daily basis: the Office of National Statistics and Care Quality Commission are collecting data on a different basis from the NHS. The Government's view is that the numbers cannot be reported alongside each other without a number of important caveats.
We must also consider scientific guidance as to how to interpret these statistics. For example, Covid-19 is what's known as a notifiable disease, which means that cases and deaths have to be reported. The reported numbers of deaths do not, however, explain whether the virus is the major cause, a contributory factor, or simply present when a patient is dying of something else. Scientists and researchers are thoroughly exploring the data to increase our understanding of the information, and I will continue to closely follow this issue.
More widely, while this is a virus which must be tackled by the global community, the UK Government believes that it is not appropriate at this stage to compare international death rates. It is extremely important that we only compare statistics where we are confident the data has been collected from the same settings, and to the same level of detail, using similar standards for measuring causes of death. When the pandemic is over, we will be in a better position to examine the data and draw comparisons and conclusions.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Craig Whittaker MP
May 2020