The NHS refuses to put a number on its dead workers (more)

UPDATE May 24 My list of UK health workers who’ve died with Coronavirus is now well out of date. The best monitoring being done on this at the moment is by @NursingNotesUK.

Nobody knows exactly how many health workers have died in the UK because they caught Coronavirus while doing their job. Counting anything is complicated and in this case it’s not possible to be certain if a health worker caught the infection while working. But we do know that they are dying; that much is clear.

This week, the nursing notes website said its Coronavirus count of dead NHS workers had passed 100. My count is currently at 104 (see github link below).

Some other numbers stand out when you look at the list of those who’ve died. Firstly the range of ages: there are workers in every age bracket from people in their 20s to those in their 80s. The age range appears to run from 23 to 84.

Two questions on Monday’s press conference asked if workers had enough protective equipment to be safe.

One NHS Trust appeared to do a u-turn this week, saying that it wasn’t trying to gag NHS workers.

The github repository with the data file is here.