Excess deaths during Europe’s coronavirus outbreak were highest in England, according to U.K. analysis

Because different countries have used different methods to calculate coronavirus deaths, many scientists consider excess mortality a more reliable way to measure the impact of the virus and to draw comparisons. Excess mortality would include not just fatalities that were directly related to covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but also the deaths of people who were hesitant to seek care for serious conditions or who did not receive the usual level of care while the health system was focused on the pandemic.

When asked by a reporter if he was “ashamed” by the findings, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson responded, “We mourn every loss of life that we’ve had throughout the coronavirus epidemic.” But he added that “clearly this country has had a massive success now in reducing the numbers of those tragic deaths.”

According to the U.K. assessment, Spain had Europe’s highest national mortality peak, with the number of deaths 138.5 percent higher at the beginning of April than in previous years. England had the second-highest peak: In mid-April, the number of excess deaths was 107.6 percent higher than the average.

The number of coronavirus patients dying in British hospitals each day has fallen sharply since then. But Johnson’s government has come under criticism for having been later than other European countries to impose a lockdown, for not providing enough protective equipment to front-line health workers and for failing to quickly roll out a robust test-and-trace system.

Edward Morgan, an expert at the Office for National Statistics, said that the first half of 2020 saw “extraordinary increases in mortality rates across countries in Western Europe above the 2015 to 2019 average.”

He said that in some countries, including Italy and Spain, the numbers were localized to specific regions, whereas the increase in deaths in Britain was more geographically widespread.

A breakdown by city showed that at its worst, the death rate in Bergamo in northern Italy was 847.7 percent higher than normal; in Madrid, it was 432.7 percent higher than normal

Some cities actually saw fewer deaths than usual during this period. When the pandemic was at its worst in Rome, it still reported 2.4 percent fewer deaths than its five-year average.

Although the excess deaths assessment only examined a period through the end of May, Johnson stressed on Thursday that the pandemic was not over and that Britons shouldn’t “delude” themselves into thinking that they are “out of the woods.”

His government is extending the self-isolation period for those with symptoms of covid-19 from seven days to 10. And, after a rise in coronavirus cases in Spain, it is requiring that travelers from Spain quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in Britain.

“We can see, sadly, a second wave of coronavirus that’s starting to roll across Europe,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC. “We want to do everything we possibly can to protect people here, and protect people from that wave reaching our shores.”

The move caught many British holidaymakers currently in Spain — including Transport Secretary Grant Shapps — by surprise.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez hit back, saying Britain should consider the regional variations; the reemergence of the virus has been largely concentrated in the Catalonia region. Sánchez added that British tourists would be safer in most parts of Spain than they would be in the U.K.

Veena Raleigh, an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the King’s Fund think tank, said life expectancy in Britain had stalled in recent years, lagging behind other European countries, and that the U.K.’s high coronavirus death toll could see it “slide even further down the life expectancy league tables.” It was, she said, “essential to tackle the underlying reasons for stalling life expectancy in recent years — many of which contribute to poor covid-19 outcomes.”