The controversy rises in the United Kingdom on the real number of victims of the Covid-19 epidemic: the government does not always take into account, in the daily publication of deaths, those occurred at home or in retirement homes from the country.
On Wednesday, April 15, the total number of deaths reached 12,868 (761 more in the past 24 hours) in the country, these figures only concerning persons tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and died in hospital.
On the international comparisons published daily by Downing Street, the United Kingdom remains well below France whereas, according to the British media, the number of victims would now be approaching if the country counted its deaths like the Hexagon, which includes deaths in retirement homes since early April.
Would it be a political dress on the part of the government, to minimize the gravity of the situation? Cited by the Daily MailOn Wednesday April 15, Mike Padgham, president of the Independent Care Group, a retirement home union in Yorkshire, estimates that the virus may already have killed 4,000 residents in the country.
When questioned on April 14, Yvonne Doyle, medical director of Public Health England, refused to admit that the favorable comparison with France was misleading. "We are constantly talking to our European neighbors to understand what they are taking into account (in their censuses), what are their good practices and how we can learn from each other ”, she sketched.
Dramatic stories
The day before, Chris Whitty, the government's chief medical adviser, had nevertheless admitted that the situation in British retirement homes was worrying, with coronavirus contaminations in 2,000 establishments (out of the 11,300 in the country, housing around 400,000 people).
Testimonies have multiplied in recent days: staff are in dire need of protective equipment (masks, gloves, aprons), they have almost no access to tests, and a large part is prevented from going to work, having had to isolate themselves after showing symptoms or because family members fell ill.
Dramatic accounts have also started to emerge in local media: thirteen residents with symptoms of Covid-19 died at Stanley Park Home in County Durham, fifteen others at a Liverpool facility, the same number in a care home of Luton, thirteen in Glasgow…
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