Chris Giles Profile picture
May 28, 2020 12 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Sufficient data worldwide now exists to conclude that, to date, the UK has the highest rate of excess deaths in the Coronavirus pandemic in the world

Free to read article with @jburnmurdoch

1/

ft.com/content/6b4c78…
The UK has suffered 60,000 excess deaths, directly or indirectly linked to Coronavirus, according to official figures.

Only the much larger US has had more.
UK has had the highest global excess death rate (per million)
And only Peru has had a higher increase in deaths

2/ ImageImage
We can say this now because there are few new excess deaths across Europe and high quality data has now been published.

The US will have a much higher absolute number but its per capita rate is far lower.

Peru has had dengue fever this year and is earlier in its outbreak

3/
There are some other countries with little data published - Brazil, Russia, China - these have large populations and unlikely to have death rates per million close to the UK

4/ Image
Excess deaths is the measure Boris Johnson and Chris Whitty have championed for comparison

Correctly, they say it is not subject to the measurement and testing problems of other comparisons

UK rate is highest for pensioners and non pensioners. Age adjustment is a red herring

5 Image
Number 10 said yesterday it was too early to do any comparisons. We disagree

6/ Image
The reason for the UK being at the bottom of the table appears to be twofold.

First, the epidemic spread across all nations and regions of the UK with excess deaths everywhere

7/ Image
This is not true in Italy and France, for example, where there were definitive hotspots of public health systems being overwhelmed and other areas with lower than normal death rates.

8/ ImageImage
Second, the point of lockdown appears strongly linked to eventual excess deaths.

Here, we show the relationship between an estimate of infections on lockdown day and eventual excess deaths

9/ Image
As many experts say, the UK was late to lockdown and that cost many lives

10/ Image
Number 10 has complained that we are jumping the gun with this international comparison and it should determine timing.

One statistician who was sympathetic @d_spiegel to the problems of comparisons says this after seeing the FT analysis

ENDS Image
@d_spiegel Following helpful suggestions here on Twitter and elsewhere, we have changed our correlation chart to report on a per capita basis.

This removes an element of tautology in the original version, which we regret. It does not change the story. Image

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Chris Giles

Chris Giles Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @ChrisGiles_

May 4, 2023
🚨🚨 Nerd alert......🚨🚨

How (not) to report a bank run that hasn't happened....

Journalism on potential bank runs is very difficult territory because reports can be self-fullfilling

The only rule is to be v v v v v careful

So I was surprised to see this Image
Is it contagion?
Was it large?
Did it even happen?

All good questions

Let's have a look...
2/
Take the "was it large" question first....

@bankofengland data shows some outflow of household deposits in its headline data

But it's clearly not large on any definition

And £5bn compared with the level of deposits of £1,817bn is small

3/ Image
Read 6 tweets
May 3, 2023
Apt

Hard cheese (cheddar) prices up more than any other dairy product in the UK

#HardCheese Image
Buy peanut butter Image
Remember paracetamol is the active ingredient in Lemsip Image
Read 4 tweets
Mar 31, 2023
Today I am a pig in sh*t...

I've been given access to the @FinancialTimes wizzy newish graphics package.

I'd like to know what you think is the best presentation of the same data...

It is the UK's poor post-covid economic performance (incl latest data today)

Base chart

1/
You can see this is real time because I've messed up the height of that chart

@theboysmithy who gave excellent training yesterday warned us not to make that rookie error

Fixed that

2/
Do you like a more traditional legend?

This can be interactive online - so click the legend to add and remove countries

3/
Read 9 tweets
Mar 14, 2023
The UK has gone from the best performing economy in the G7 to an also ran.

Why has this happened?

New big read

enterprise-sharing.ft.com/redeem/c17e9be…

In a single chart

1/
After the period of the financial crisis, which hit the UK very hard with its large financial sector…. There were 2 periods

2010-2016 where growth was lower than before but still internationally strong

2016+ when growth fell further and UK dropped down the G7 league table

2/
It’s not just Brexit. Policy flip-flops are singled out by many in deterring investment

As is now obvious - Brexit didn’t help

3/
Read 5 tweets
Feb 22, 2023
I've written an explainer on why the public finances are in much better shape than expected in November

A 🧵Does this vindicate Liz Truss' cconomic policy?

tl:dr NO

1/

ft.com/content/22e1f7…
First: Interest rates were lower in the autumn statment than when Truss was in office (and wasn't U-turning), so the public finances would have had to cope with the continued "moron premium" - now gone

2/ Image
Second: Truss proposed a £45bn of tax cuts and these were reversed with a fiscal tightening of £55bn by Hunt - so there was a £100bn difference (way bigger than the £30bn improvement in 2022-23 we've seen) ft.com/content/5daeca…
Read 9 tweets
Feb 14, 2023
Today’s UK labour market figures were remarkable.

Everyone appears to think the figures show their prior views were correct

The chancellor Jeremy Hunt said they showed the need to stick to his plan
The Centre for Ageing Better said it was all about the over 50s
Pantheon Macroeconomics, who think interest rates have peaked, said it showed slack opening up and no need for another interest rate rise
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(