- The UK is on course to suffer the highest
coronavirus death toll in all of Europe according to the latest official figures. - UK government figures released on Wednesday show 26,097 people have died in the UK after testing positive for the coronavirus.
- The newly updated figures put the UK behind only Italy in Europe.
Analysis of UK death rates last week found that the true death count in the UK could be well above 40,000.- Two-thirds of the UK public now believe Boris Johnson's government acted too late to implement the coronavirus lockdown.
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The UK is on course to record the highest death toll from the coronavirus in all of Europe, according to the latest official figures which show the country is now behind only Italy in terms of fatalities.
A total of 26,097 people have so far died after testing positive for the coronavirus, Boris Johnson's government revealed on Wednesday evening, after it updated its data to include people who had died in care homes.
The new figures mean that the UK is second only to Italy, which has recorded 27,682 total deaths, and is behind the curve in terms of declining daily deaths, according to the latest figures compiled by John Hopkins University.
Once the data is adjusted for population size, the UK's trajectory is already worse than Italy but remains behind Spain in terms of deaths per capita.
All three countries are well ahead of Germany, which has experienced only a fraction of the number of deaths to date.
Belgium's seemingly higher per capita death toll is in fact due to a much broader definition of what is registered as a coronavirus-linked death and so is not directly comparable to deaths in the UK, Spain and Italy.
The UK's daily death toll, along with the number of hospital admissions, has started to decline in recent weeks, meaning the UK appears to have passed the first peak of infections.
However, an analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics last week found that the true UK death toll from the coronavirus pandemic is likely to be far higher than government figures have so far recorded.
The research, by the Financial Times newspaper, compared the number of 'excess deaths' being registered since the outbreak against previous years, and suggested that the real death toll linked to the virus is likely already well above 40,000.
Jeremy Farrar, one of the UK government's senior
He told the BBC's Andrew Marr show on April 12: "I do hope that we are coming close to the number of new infections reducing and, in a week or two, the number of people needing hospital reducing, and the number of deaths starting to come down.
"But numbers in the UK have continued to go up. And yes, the UK is likely to be certainly one of the worst, if not the worst affected, country in Europe."
New polling on Thursday showed that the UK public now overwhelmingly believes that the UK acted too slow to implement its coronavirus lockdown.
Two-thirds of the British public believe Boris Johnson's government acted too late according to the polling by Ipsos Mori.
The latest data means the government appears unlikely to relax many of the strict lockdown measures in place when they are reviewed on May 7.
Boris Johnson, who returned to work on Monday after recovering from the coronavirus, said on Tuesday that he would not "throw away" the public's "effort and sacrifice" by lifting measures too early.
Some Cabinet ministers, including Chancellor Rishi Sunak, are thought to favour easing restrictions sooner amid fears the economy would suffer severe and permanent economic damage from a prolonged lockdown.
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