Many have noticed that UK deaths from covid 19 are spectacularly high.
We are beginning to learn why.
Public Health England is defining coronavirus deaths so as to include people with existing conditions who had covid 19, recovered, then died of what they had.
I kinda understand why they would do so. Covid may be a catalyst. But for international comparisons to be valid, you'd want every country to use the same methods. And even within the UK, that isn't the case: the method used in Scotland and Northern Ireland excludes those types of people.
It would be useful to have new categories for these sorts of data - call it subsequent deaths - so that mortality rate comparisons are possible.
| 