Claims, Caution and Comparisons

Flawed comparisons make “an absolutely astonishing statistic”.

On 3rd June, Nicholas Watt (BBC Newsnight) claimed:

The UK now has more daily deaths from [COVID-19] than the rest of the EU put together.

Tens of thousands of social media users shared the Newsnight graph.

International comparisons are challenging. Countries count COVID-19 deaths in different ways and can change over time.

Claim and caution

On BBC Newsnight, Watt said:

The UK now has more daily deaths from COVID than the rest of the EU put together. There’s that 359 UK figure, against 314 for the 27 member states of the EU. Perhaps we could look at this way: the UK with a population of 66 million has more deaths than the EU with a population of 450 million.

The political editor followed those claims with caution:

It is important, Emily, to add a few words of caution. There’s a two-week lag between the UK and France and Italy that had the highest death rates in the EU.

You have to be very careful about comparing deaths between countries which obviously compile them in a different way.

That UK overnight figure (359): that’s for the deaths registered in that period, not deaths that actually took place in that period.