Why I’m not taking England’s death rate at face value - Yorkshire Post Letters

I HAVE always been sceptical of taking statistics at face value. For example, it is not surprising that England has the highest or nearly highest death rate in Europe. This is based on the rate being calculated as deaths/100,000 people.

Given that Covid-19 has a more rapid transmission rate than any other virus previously known, the population density will be key to infection rates and therefore deaths, so whilst the current statistics from the Office of National Statistics are perfectly valid, they could be quite misleading if taken in isolation.

A quick few searches on Wikipedia will show population densities for countries and many cities. France for example is 270/sq mile, Spain 243, Italy 521, Germany 601. England’s density is 1,119/sq mile, four times the size of France and Spain and around double that of Italy and Germany.

Of course if you look at the whole of the United Kingdom the density drops to 701 essentially due to the inclusion of Scotland. This would suggest that England’s death rate would need to have been over four times its current level to be the worst.

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

There is much talk about applying lockdown to the over-50s to prevent the spread of coronavirus but the question is, who are the idiots who congregate in huge numbers and by doing so spread the virus? It is not the over 50s.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor