
UK gov suspends publication of daily COVID-19 death toll over accuracy concerns - ogogmad
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-uk-death-toll-nhs-phe-covid-19-government-england-scotland-a9626336.html
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DanBC
This isn't as big a deal as some people seem to think.

Most people were not using the daily updates because the problems are well
known. There's lags in the data (especially around weekends and public
holidays), the data can't be compared across the UK, and this data (even with
this method) tends to under count deaths. It's a mistake to think it has lead
to an over count of deaths.

Most people are using the weekly ONS data instead.

EG, this tweet:
[https://twitter.com/ActuaryByDay/status/1284468751790936065?...](https://twitter.com/ActuaryByDay/status/1284468751790936065?s=20)

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mytailorisrich
The time between diagnosis and eventual death is not key. What's key is the
cause of death and whether a patient had been cured in the meantime.

If someone is successfully treated, discharged from hospital then dies from an
unrelated cause (a scenario they mention in the article) then they do have a
point. I doubt these are common cases, though, but they should indeed be
evaluated and corrected.

But their proposal to have a hard cut-off of 21 days after diagnosis is
equally flawed although I can see the government being keen on lowering
official stats...

