Speaking on BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that fewer people would have died from coronavirus in the UK if the country had greater testing capacity sooner.
“Yes. If we had had 100,000 test capacity before this thing started and the knowledge that we now have retrospectively I’m sure many things could be different.The fact of the matter is this is not a country that had – although we’re very big in pharmaceuticals as a country – we’re not a country that had very large test capacity.”
He also said that the country may have had a high death rate compared to some other countries because of “density of population”.
Britain, he said has “denser cities” compared to other countries and the number of deaths are high because the figures are a “product of excellent statisticians counting in a way that other countries don’t”.
On the same programme,Professor Sir Ian Diamond, UK national statistician, has said Britain has the “best reporting” of death data, as he cautioned against making international comparisons.
Asked if the UK was heading for the worst death toll in Europe, he said:
“I wouldn’t say that at all and I would say that making international comparisons is an unbelievably difficult thing to do.
“In this country we have – in my opinion, and let me be clear I would say this, wouldn’t I – but I think we have the best reporting, the most transparent reporting, and the most timely reporting, because we include death registrations – we’ve been pushing our death registration reporting as fast as we possibly can.
“And then even after you look at the actual deaths, it’s incredibly important to recognise the context – so deaths are going to be more concentrated… in inner cities. If you have a rural country then it’s likely that your death rates will be lower.
“I’m not saying that we are at the bottom of any potential league table – it’s almost impossible to calculate a league table – but I’m not prepared to say that we’re heading for the top.”
