Daily toll of Covid victims will NOT be scrapped, sources say
Daily toll of Covid victims will NOT be scrapped despite axing of legal restrictions, sources say
- Daily Covid figures may continue to be published despite ending of restrictions
- Government sources last night said there were ‘no plans’ to end the statistics
- Former party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said ‘time to call time on project fear’
Daily Covid statistics could continue to be published for months, despite the ending of legal restrictions.
Government sources last night said there were ‘no plans’ to end the release of daily figures on case numbers, hospitalisations and Covid-related deaths, despite controversy over the picture they paint.
Tory MPs last night stepped up calls for the figures to be scrapped.
Former party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said it was ‘time to call time on project fear’.
Daily Covid statistics could continue to be published for months, despite the ending of legal restrictions. Former party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith (pictured) said it was ‘time to call time on project fear’
He said the figures, which are also broadcast each day on BBC news bulletins, had fuelled public anxiety about the virus out of proportion to the threat that it posed.
Fellow Conservative Bob Seely told the Daily Mail: ‘I have never understood why we publish the figures in isolation unless the aim was simply to scare people.
‘We do not publish figures for the deaths from flu or pneumonia on a daily basis and we should not do so for Covid.
It was simply intended to scare people and it should stop immediately.’
But a Government source said that the daily figures could continue for many months to come.
‘Obviously they will not continue for ever, but there are no plans to stop publication at this stage,’ the source said. ‘We know we may face Covid again in the autumn and it seems sensible to keep this in place.’
Figures published by the UK Health Security Agency for infections, hospitalisations and deaths have all fallen in recent weeks.
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