TIMES
(LONDON) — Leading British charities said the new coronavirus is causing “devastation” in the country’s nursing homes, as official statistics showed Tuesday that hundreds more people with COVID-19 have died than are recorded in the U.K. government’s daily tally.
The Office for National Statistics said 5,979 deaths that occurred in England up to April 3 involved COVID-19, 15% more than the 5,186 deaths announced by the National Health Service for the same period.
As of Tuesday the government had reported more than 12,000 deaths in the U.K. of people with the new coronavirus.
That total, updated daily, only includes people who died in hospitals. The higher figure, published weekly by the statistics office, includes deaths in all settings including nursing homes, and cases where coronavirus was suspected but not tested for.
Caroline Abrahams, director of the charity Age U.K., said the government’s daily figures “are airbrushing older people out like they don’t matter.”
Age U.K. and other charities have written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock calling social care “the neglected front line” in the pandemic.
“We are appalled by the devastation which coronavirus is causing in the care system and we have all been inundated with desperate calls from the people we support, so we are demanding a comprehensive care package to support social care through the pandemic,” said the charities, which include Care England and the Alzheimer’s Society.
The statistics office said that up to April 3 just under 10% of deaths involving COVID-19 occurred outside hospitals. It said there were 217 deaths involving the virus in care homes in the week to April 3, a ten-fold increase from the previous week.
The government says outbreaks of COVID-19 have been reported at one in eight U.K. care homes.
Care home operators and staff say that figure likely underestimates the true toll in facilities that house some of the country’s oldest and most vulnerable people, cared for by often overworked and poorly paid staff.
David Behan, chairman of home operator HC-One, said cases of the new coronavirus had been reported in 232 of the firm’s homes — two-thirds of the total. He said 311 residents and one staff member have died with confirmed or suspected COVID-19.
“COVID-19 deaths are representative of about … just under about a third of all deaths that we’ve had over the past three weeks,” he told the BBC.