Atherstone update: 'All deaths' transparency is new challenge for a world still reeling under yoke of coronavirus

BELGIUM RECORDS FATALITIES OUTSIDE OF HOSPITALS AND WHERE PATIENTS HAD SYMPTOMS BUT HAD NOT BEEN TESTED

NATIONS across the globe are starting pressure poltiics in terms of transparency of Covid-19 statistics as the death toll passed 150,000 tonight.

Belgium has accepted the tag of the worst case fatality rate (CFR) in the world – ahead of the UK – only because of claims it is being "more open" with its data than other countries.

And as Europe faces up to a virus death toll which could be double the one recorded in official figures – Belgium's 5,163 lives lost through coronavirus includes deaths outside of hospitals and where the patient had symptoms but had not been tested.

Its CFR on 36,000 confirmed cases is 14.29 per cent, compared to the UK's 13.42 per cent on 14,576 deaths out of 108,692 people who have tested positive on these shores for the virus.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock has promised data specifically on the deaths of care home residents with coronavirus will be published "very shortly" while Care Quality Commission has begun collecting data on fatalities linked to Covid-19 which have occurred in both hospitals and care homes.

In the UK, the most recent figures are of 217 care home deaths registered up until April 3.

Professor Anthony Costello, of University College London's Institute for Global Health, told the Commons Health and Social Care Committee on Friday the "harsh reality" is that "we were too slow with a number of things" and deaths could reach to 40,000 in the first wave of coronavirus – with a possible nine more waves before 'herd immunity' is achieved.

That rush to be appear more open even saw China registering its worst day for deaths – by revising previous totals and not identifying new cases.

Officials placed the new tally at 3,869 deaths from the coronavirus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, an increase of 1,290, or 50 per cent up from the previous figure.

The number of confirmed infections in the city where the pandemic started was also revised upward to 50,333, an increase of 325.

Officials in Wuhan added that the revised death toll now includes those who passed at home in the early days of the outbreak, as well as numbers not properly reported by hospitals or registered on death certificates.

The move appeared to be a response to growing questions about the accuracy of China's official numbers and calls to hold it responsible for what has become a global health crisis in 177 countries.

Where the virus started has also turned into a whodunnit. US intelligence indicates it likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, according to US General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

US officials warned two years ago that safety lapses during the study of bats at a Wuhan laboratory could lead to a coronavirus outbreak.

Secret cables from American embassy officials – following 2018 visits to a lab in the Chinese city now at the centre of the world pandemic – were obtained by the Washington Post.

The US has its own worries – some 4,591 deaths was the worst one-day tally since the start of the pandemic – with the overall total at more than 35,000 out of 690,000 confirmed cases.

Finding lockdown measures repressive is a challenge for people across the globe. In Michigan, thousands of drivers clogged the streets to demand Governor Gretchen Whitmer ease restrictions and allow them to go back to work.

Many got out of their cars and crashed the front lawn of the capitol building, demanding Ms Whitmer be "locked up". She claimed the protesters might have just made the situation worse in a state already dealing with more than 28,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus.

"We know that this demonstration is going to come at a cost to people's health," Ms Whitmer said.

"We know that when people gather that way without masks … that's how covid-19 spreads.

"And so the sad irony here is that the protest was that they don't like being in this stay-at-home order, and they may have just created a need to lengthen it, which is something we're trying to avoid at all costs."

A US study found that social distancing measures could be in place for the next two years unless a new coronavirus treatment emerges.

Writing in the Science journal, researchers said lifting these COVID-19 guidelines come autumn may lead to a winter outbreak that would overlap with flu season.

Out of 108,000 recorded cases in the UK, Kent become the new 'hot spot' for coronavirus.

It has overtaken Birmingham in the upper tier local authority table. The West Midlands' capital has been top for three weeks. Kent has 2,108 people who have tested positive to Brum's 2,064.

Warwickshire has 761 confirmed cases, Coventry 474 – Atherstone's neighbouring counties Staffordshire has 1,102 cases and Leicestershire 609.

By region, London has now passed the 20,000 milestone for cases (20,215), East and West Midlands is 13,498 combined, the North West 12,687 and the South East 11,471.

Testing is still a thorny issue with the UK continuing to slip down Nub News's 'tests-per-million-population' table. We have completed 438,991 but lie 59th now in the international league which is headed by the Faroe Islands, followed by Iceland and the Unied Arab Emirates.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps advised anyone thinking of booking a summer holiday to "forget it" at the moment as stand-in PM Dominic Raab said the "broad outline" for returning to some kind of normality will still take around three months from when the UK first went into lockdown in the middle of March – based on coming through the peak of Covid-19.

The world has 2.2 million confirmed cases of the virus – with deaths now 151,968.