Hancock’s Half Horrors as England hides its dead

While Scotland and now Northern Ireland have moved to a new covid-19 recording method for deaths, leading to major increases in cases being reported and opening up governments there to inaccurate comparisons, Matt Hancock resists any such change for England.

From the Good Law Project’s campaign:

Leaked guidance from an NHS hospital trust reveals that doctors are not being required to report COVID-19 as the cause of death for patients. Here’s what the guidance says: ‘Doctors are asked to use the standard MCCD (Medical Certificate of Cause of Death) form to certify death. ‘Pneumonia ‘or ‘community acquired pneumonia’ are acceptable at 1(a) on the MCCD. There is no requirement to write COVID 19 as part of the MCCD. It may be mentioned at 1(b) on the form, should the doctor wish.’ The guidance can be seen here. The Good Law Project has instructed a legal team to write a letter to the hospital trust to ask them to withdraw this guidance urgently. You can read the letter here.  The government’s daily figures for the number of deaths from COVID-19 are based on what is reported on death certificates. If doctors are not required to write COVID-19 anywhere on the death certificate, then we have no way of knowing if those figures are correct.

https://goodlawproject.org/covid-19-deaths/

The new Scottish system began ten days ago:

https://www.gov.scot/news/additional-covid-19-daily-data-published/

It has been used by some of the Unionist press to dramatise death rates.

Northern Ireland moved to a more accurate system yesterday:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-52322933

8 thoughts on “Hancock’s Half Horrors as England hides its dead”

  1. Presumably if we see a spike in overall deaths in England,then we can assume that the virus has played a part in this,even if not reported as directly attributable.

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  2. In other words they are hiding it and getting away with it , so where are all these forensics jurnos , you know the ones , Neil , Marr , Preston , etc . , that love to jam Nicola Sturgeon in a corner and not let her out till they have squeezed ever once of information from her ! .

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  3. Tony Hancock actually had a strong sense of self-awareness, which was the medium in which his wonderful comedy was rooted. This Hancock has none. He and his cronies see themselves as ‘entitled’ and the rest of us as ‘feckless’ and ‘getting what we’ deserve’.

    Keep out of those public parks! Stay on your own estate (not a housing estate, nothing so OIKISH) or second home in the Cotswolds. Even parvenu arrivistes in the Tories, quickly assume these attitudes.

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  5. So Dr’s are not required to put down Covid-19 in part 1a. Presumably they can fill in Covid-19 if they choose.
    Why would a Dr. not put down what he/she considers to be the cause of death? Other than to help out an incompetent Tory Gov.

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    1. There were some interesting observations on this from a practising doctor, cannot recall where I read it in the press…
      1 – In the case of asymptomatic patients examined in the early stages there was no “tell-tale” prior to later death. Patients who had displayed some early symptoms could so quickly decline that third party observations were the only information available on which a judgement could be made.
      2 – If Covid was attributed at all on the cert, a barrage of phone calls and emails would ensue “seeking further information”. Whether deliberate harassment or genuinely seeking clarity, the time taken dealing with it was hugely intrusive, thereby it was “easier” not to mention it.
      My suspicions are the former is the playbook under cover of the latter at political direction, the Tories don’t just want to bury the dead they want to bury the evidence.

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