In the Herald today:

BRITAIN could be on course to have the highest death rate from coronavirus in Europe.

Michael Settle, UK [not Scotland] Political Editor, is not wrong. He might even be understating things.

As it stands, counting only hospital death statistics as he has above, the UK is in third place behind Belgium and France:

https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1572472/?utm_source=showcase&utm_campaign=visualisation/1572472

However, if the FT/ONS prediction of 41 000 deaths, once out-of-hospital deaths are added, the UK would soar ahead of them.

There is, of course, no good reason to lump Scotland’s death rate in with that of England in a UK figure as we have more accurate figures, including care home deaths and deaths in the community, from the NRS of 1 616 deaths:

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/covid19stats

The UK population is 12.6 times greater than that of Scotland so the UK rate including care home deaths might be expected to be around 20 000 but, according to the FT/ONS is expected to be twice that.

Though nowhere near the worst, the Scottish rate would still be tragically around the 8th highest in Europe.