The United Kingdom has overtaken Italy as the country with highest official Coronavirus death toll in Europe.
Figures released on Tuesday showed the fatalities in UK exceeds the death toll of 29,029 in Italy.
Reuters reported that the weekly figures from Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) added more than 7,000 deaths in England and Wales, raising the total for the United Kingdom to 32,313 as of late April.
Tuesday’s figures are based on death certificate mentions of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, including suspected cases. This has spiked fear of UK becoming one of the worst hit countries in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic which has killed over 250,000 people worldwide.
Of the coronavirus deaths registered up to 1 May in England and Wales, 6,686 took place in care homes, which was 22.5% of all the deaths from the virus by that point, the ONS figures show.
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, tweeted;
Latest ONS stats show that the dire situation in our social care sector is a crisis within a crisis. Any talk of being “past the peak” of this virus is meaningless given these figures. We need urgent action to get PPE to staff the frontline and tests for care workers
Only the United States has suffered more deaths than Britain, according to the data so far.
