Coronavirus: Death

(asked on 11th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his oral evidence to the Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Select Committees on 10 June 2021, Q1293, HC95, whether the report he received containing a reasonable worse case scenario estimate of 820,000 covid-19 deaths contained a reasonable best case scenario estimate; and if he will place a copy of that report in the Library.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 18th June 2021

At the start of 2020, the Government’s COVID-19 planning was partly informed by the reasonable-worst case scenario (RWCS) for pandemic influenza, as well as emerging evidence on COVID-19. These planning assumptions are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/influenza-vs-covid-planning-assumptions-10-february-2020

The estimate of 820,000 deaths relates to the estimated number of excess deaths in the 2019 pandemic influenza RWCS. It does not relate to direct COVID-19 or flu deaths, nor to estimated deaths under a COVID-19 RWCS. Excess deaths are the number of deaths from any cause that occur above the yearly expected average. The planning assumptions used at the beginning of 2020 were updated as new evidence on COVID-19 emerged. The March 2020 RWCS for COVID-19, includes an optimistic scenario, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reasonable-worst-case-planning-scenario-29-march-2020

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