Which countries have fared worst in the pandemic? | David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters

The league table' is changing and it's not over yet

Last April, one of us (DS) wrote an article saying it was too soon to compare how lethal the pandemic had been in different countries. Nearly a year later, has the time come?

Unfortunately, countries have different ways of counting; Sciensano in Belgium counts both suspected and confirmed deaths from Covid-19, while Hungary counts only hospital deaths within lab confirmation. So the Office for National Statistics ignores these labels and just looks at excess mortality compared with the 2015-2019 average, standardising the figures to a standard European" population, so accounting for differences in population size and age structure.

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