Rayner says public deserves transparency as Covid death toll passes 200,000

Angela Rayner has declared that “the public deserves transparency about how the UK government handled Covid” as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that more than 200,000 Covid deaths have now been reported across the UK.

Commenting this afternoon on the 200,247 recorded deaths, the deputy Labour leader described the figure as a “tragic milestone” and argued that the inquiry into the government’s response to the pandemic “cannot begin its work soon enough”.

She added: “There can be no excuses for not ensuring ministers are held accountable for their decisions.”

More than 100,000 Covid deaths had been registered in the UK by early January 2021, less than a year into the pandemic. The death toll slowed after the introduction of vaccinations and advances in how to treat the virus.

Professor Christina Pagel told The Guardian that “there was a time when the suggestion of 50,000 deaths a year seemed outrageous”, but that now “we seem to have just accepted that this is the way it is when it’s much higher”.

According to Our World in Data, the UK has the highest Covid death toll in Europe in absolute terms. The country has a death rate of 2,689 per million people, which is lower than in Hungary, Italy or Poland but higher than in Spain, France and Germany.

The excess mortality rate for the UK is also higher than the averages of neighbouring European governments, running at 2,098 per million people, almost twice that of Germany’s at 1,117, according to Our World in Data.

The proportion of people dying because of Covid as a primary cause, compared with those whose death certificates mention the virus either as the main cause or a contributory factor, has also fallen over the course of the pandemic.

Boris Johnson promised that a statutory inquiry into the handling of the pandemic would begin in spring, but the government had failed to finalise the terms of reference at the end of last month and only formally opened last week.

Families bereaved by Covid insisted Johnson must still face justice at the inquiry last week as they voiced concerns that his resignation would see him make a fortune from writing and speeches while they remained scarred by grief.

The inquiry has started to gather evidence. Hearings are not expected to begin until 2023. In recent days, allies of Johnson have repeated his claim that he “got the big calls right” on Covid and frequently cited the vaccination programme.

But co-founder of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign Jo Goodman said the death toll reaching 200,000 was “yet another damning milestone of the government’s handling of the pandemic”.

She added: “Four hundred and fifty-four people died within 28 days of a positive test from Covid just last week, and yet the government refuses to take even basic steps to protect people from the virus.

“By making people pay for tests, not enforcing adequate sick pay or taking measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in hospitals, the government is effectively throwing the most vulnerable in our society to the wolves.”