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David Spiegelhalter, chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said that Covid-19 did not explain the high number of deaths taking place in the community.
At a briefing hosted by the Science Media Centre on May 12 he explained that, over the past five weeks, care homes and other community settings had had to deal with a ‘staggering burden’ of 30,000 more deaths than would normally be expected, as patients were moved out of hospitals that were anticipating high demand for beds.

Of those 30,000, only 10 000 have had Covid-19 specified on the death certificate. While Spiegelhalter acknowledged that some of these ‘excess deaths’ might be the result of underdiagnosis, ‘the huge number of unexplained extra deaths in homes and care homes is extraordinary. When we look back . . . this rise in non-covid extra deaths outside the hospital is something I hope will be given really severe attention.’ He added that many of these deaths would be among people ‘who may well have lived longer if they had managed to get to hospital.’