Researchers say current data includes a “statistical anomaly” by which “no one can ever recover from COVID-19 in England”.
An urgent review has been ordered into how the daily coronavirus death figures are calculated after it was claimed the current method does not take into account the fact that some people may have recovered from COVID-19 and died of a different cause.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has asked for the examination of Public Health England’s (PHE) data – said by researchers to include a “statistical anomaly” by which “no one can ever recover from COVID-19 in England”.
The government’s own figures show there have been 45,119 COVID-19 associated deaths across the UK.
But that tally is feared to be inaccurate due to the way coronavirus deaths are recorded in England.
Explaining the “strange anomaly”, Sky News’ Rowland Manthorpe said: “Essentially, there is no way to recover, statistically. So, if I tested positive for COVID-19 today and then I got hit by a bus tomorrow, then COVID-19 would be listed as my cause of death.”
A government source confirmed that PHE’s current method of calculation means if a person was previously diagnosed with COVID-19 but subsequently died of unrelated causes, their death would still be counted as part of PHE’s daily coronavirus death tally.
In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, you are assumed to have recovered 28 days after a positive test.
The review ordered by Mr Hancock aims to sort out the issue and establish the impact on the UK’s overall death tally.
A recent article published by the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM), based at Oxford University, described the “statistical anomaly” which means that “no one can ever recover from COVID-19 in England”.
“It seems that PHE regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not,” said the article’s authors Professor Yoon Loke, from the University of East Anglia, and Professor Carl Heneghan, from Oxford University.
“PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the COVID test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community.
“Anyone who has tested COVID positive but subsequently died at a later date of any cause will be included on the PHE COVID death figures.
“By this PHE definition, no one with COVID in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness.
“A patient who has tested positive, but successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a COVID death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.”
