Britain ordered an urgent review Friday, July 17, into how coronavirus deaths are counted after a study suggested health authorities are overestimating the toll by counting people who died long after recovering.have been recorded in patients who tested positive for COVID-19 in Britain and many more died without being tested, making the country's outbreak the deadliest in Europe.
Authors Yoon K Loke and Carl Heneghan said that in compiling death data, Public Health England simply checks its list of lab-confirmed cases against a central register of deaths to see whether they are still alive. They suggested this could explain variations in England's daily toll, and why deaths there have not fallen in the same way they have in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which collect their own data.
"It's time to fix this statistical flaw that leads to an over-exaggeration of COVID-associated deaths," it said, recommending only deaths within 21 days of a positive test be included in the figures.