The UK now has the highest death toll in Europe from coronavirus after new official figures revealed that more than 32,000 people have died from the virus.
The Office for National Statistics said 29,648 deaths had taken place by 27 April in England and Wales with Covid-19 mentioned in death certificates.
With the addition of deaths in Scotland and Northern Ireland, this takes the UK’s death toll to 32,313, according to calculations by Reuters.
This figure far exceeds the death toll of 29,029 in Italy – until now Europe’s worst-hit country. Italy’s total does not include suspected cases.
Ministers and experts have warned against international comparisons, saying the figure for excess mortality – the number of deaths from all causes that exceed the average for the time of year – is a more meaningful gauge.
The latest ONS figures for the week ending 24 April show there were 21,997 deaths, which is 11,539 more than the average for that week. But the total weekly death toll dipped slightly by 354 death. This was the first decrease in weekly deaths since the start of the outbreak and confirms other figures showing the UK is past the peak of infections.
The figures also show that while hospital deaths increased at a slower rate in the week ending 24 April than the previous week, deaths in care homes continued to increase by 595 to 7,911.
For the first time last week, the government began including data on deaths outside hospitals in cases where people had tested positive for coronavirus, in the daily death toll figures for the virus.
By contrast the ONS figures include all deaths where Covid-19 is mentioned on death certificates.
Italy quickly became a centre of the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, with the first deaths in late February, and was the first European country to move into lockdown.
