The UK government is sharing misleading coronavirus figures – and it’s dangerous

China’s in the spotlight again, having added nearly 1,300 people to its Covid-19 death toll while at the same time denying any suggestion of a cover-up.

I know, I know. That’s a bit like a con artist denying any suggestion of a crime despite having come into possession of a brand new Porsche, a Rolex and a cellar full of fine wine after flogging dodgy investment advice to an ageing couple.

But it’s a bit rich strafing China when our own official coronavirus stats are about as reliable as the 100m times put up by Ben Johnson when the Canadian sprinter was fuelled by pharmaceuticals.

No one really knows the true number of cases in Britain because unless your surname is Gove, and your dad is called Michael, you’ll struggle to get tested even if you’re among the NHS staff who might have to start using bin bags as a substitute for the personal protective equipment the government has failed to provide for you.

The Word Health Organisation puts the number of globally confirmed cases at more than 2 million. With the emphasis on “globally confirmed”.

The trouble with that number is it is about as worthwhile as one of those bin bags because the WHO is reliant on what’s reported to it by different countries, all of which have different approaches to testing. Or not testing.

Like Britain, at least before the target of 100,000 a day was ushered in, and even then I wouldn’t want to put money on the government hitting it.

The WHO has the number of fatalities of 135,136, which ought to be more reliable. But see the above reference to China.

What should make us very, very angry in this country is that the UK, in theory, accounts for roughly 10 per cent of those deaths despite having less than 1 per cent of the world’s population and the experience of other countries, where things got nastier earlier, to inform its approach.

But even that 10 per cent figure is open to debate. It might very well be higher because the commonly quoted stat in Britain, the one I’m using to make the calculation, refers only to deaths in hospitals. It doesn’t include deaths in care homes or of people who succumb in their own homes before they get as far as calling 111. It could also be lower if other nations are similarly underreporting.

There are lies. There are damned lies. And, well you know the rest. It’s obviously convenient to a government that appears to think Brexit is more important than breathing, and has thumbed its nose at European bulk purchasing of equipment, for the figures to be downplayed.

Were the true number to be collated and regularly featured in the media, it would make its handling of this crisis look even worse than it already does.

Trouble is, underplaying the seriousness of the situation, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s the British or the Chinese who are at it, becomes problematic when you want people to observe lockdown for at least another three weeks.

There are already too many people out there who would deny the scale of the crisis. I’m thinking here of the “it’s only a nasty flu” brigade.

Will people hear them in London, or the other hotspots where it’s getting to the stage where if you don’t know someone who’s died you probably know someone who does, and if not, someone who has been in hospital? Hopefully not. We shall see.

But what about those areas which have mercifully avoided the worst of the pandemic’s ravages? The lockdown should help keep it that way, but it will only do so only if people follow the official advice and ignore the siren voices seeking to minimise the problem.

The underreporting of deaths, and cases, plays into their malevolent narrative. It’s also profoundly disrespectful to the people who’ve died, not to mention their families.