Thread by @BarclayBenedict

The idea that the UK is seeing more Covid cases than other Western European countries because it is testing more is one that refuses to die. I know it's often made in bad faith, but anyway...

First, positive rates are low in most of those countries, e.g. Spain/France.

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So yes, they're testing less, but because they have fewer people with symptoms, fewer contacts, etc. If they had high rates of cases with low testing, the positive rate would be high.

In terms of cases, we can see how UK diverged from rest of Western Europe over Aug/Sept.

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After cases, you get to hospital admissions. Here I've moved forward a week, to allow for a bit of delay between testing positive and being admitted to hospital.

Spain and France, which were high for cases, also start high for hospital admissions, but gradually fall.

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Next deaths, moving another week forward in time (probably not quite enough). Anyway, same pattern, with France and Spain starting high and falling.

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Ah, but excess mortality is the best measure, I hear someone say. Yes, but it's also not as up to date, and so there's a lag in addition to the lag for getting from cases to deaths. Nevertheless, looking at the latest data, a pattern emerges...

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Over coming months, we'll see that excess mortality has been higher in the UK than in these other countries in October. Meanwhile, it's pretty clear that although there are differences in testing, criteria for hospital admission and even counting deaths, UK is an outlier.

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