Every day for seven weeks since the end of March, the British government published a comparison of COVID-19 deaths in different countries. Last week, it stopped. A government spokesperson claimed that’s because ministers “varied the content and format” of the information they present to the public, according to news reports. Critics point out this need for variety only arose after the line on the graph to indicate cumulative UK deaths climbed above that of every other European country.

According to the most recent tallies from May 12, 32,692 people in the UK had lost their lives to the disease. That compares with 30,911 in Italy, 26,920 in Spain, 26,643 in France, and 7,667 in Germany. In the United States the recorded toll on that date was 81,779 deaths.
Those data look precise but they are anything but. Epidemiologists are fond of saying that all models are wrong but some are useful. The same is true for mortality statistics. Public health officials have long battled with inconsistent and delayed reporting of deaths, even within different regions of the same country. And that long-standing issue now poses a problem for researchers trying to track the pandemic and understand its implications.