Thread by @jburnmurdoch

NEW: we’ve updated our excess mortality tracker, the gold-standard measure for Covid deaths, allowing like-for-like comparisons btwn countries

UK had 54,000 more deaths than usual in March & April vs 30,000 reported Covid deaths at the time

Free to read: ft.com/content/a26fbf…

It’s also clear South America is an emerging global epicentre, and officials are struggling to capture full extent of its death toll

Peru may be battling most severe outbreak in the world. Nationally, deaths up 81% vs normal. 8,000 excess deaths vs 1,800 reported Covid deaths

We’ve added lots of new data for world’s worst-hit cities & regions
• Major South American cities, alongside those in Turkey & Russia, are battling fierce outbreaks and under-counting Covid deaths
• Towering peaks in excess deaths in European cities are beginning to flatten out

We now have excess mortality data for all UK countries & regions.

Deaths in March & April were:
• 73% higher than usual in England
• +62% in Scotland
• +44% in Northern Ireland
• +43% in Wales

New story from @ChrisGiles_ on UK excess deaths ft.com/content/f6a11f…

In the US, we’ve added more states as data arrives. Urban North East still the epicentre, but several other states and D.C. also suffering.

Nationally, US was already on 52,300 excess deaths by April 18, 60% higher than its reported number of 32,601 Covid deaths at that time ⚠️

Overall across the 24 countries for which we have excess mortality data, we find 249,000 excess during recent weeks.

This is 61% higher than the number of Covid deaths reported in these countries at the time.

Data for all countries: ft.com/content/a26fbf…

Still not clear if UK has Europe’s highest death toll or excess death rate, but it’s bad.

Official Covid death nums can’t be compared between countries, so definitive answers will come from excess death data.

Still waiting on Italy, which has only published March excess deaths.

One other metric for whether a country handled its Covid crisis well is how many regions suffer bad outbreaks.

Here’s Italy’s data at region level, sorted north to south.

Lombardy was hit hard, and two other northern regions saw excess deaths of 50%+, so that’s 3/19 regions

Here’s the UK.

9/12 regions have excess deaths above 50%.

Utility of the "how many regions" measure is it shows whether a country managed to contain its outbreak in one broad area, as Italy & China did.

Bad outbreaks in multiple regions suggest action was taken too late.

Here’s the same for Spain.

Many Spanish regions had severe outbreaks. Four saw deaths ~double, and a total of 7/19 saw at least a 50% spike.

And now France, where Paris suffered badly, and Grand Est also faced a big outbreak, but although most other regions were affected none saw all-cause deaths increase by 50% or more.

Please point me to more all-cause deaths data.

India & Mexico still our top targets, but any country is appreciated.

Ideally daily, weekly or monthly data, for multiple years, and including 2020. Can be for one town or city, not just nationally.

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