U.K. appears to be on track for one of Europe's worst COVID-19 death tolls

Britain is on track to recordone of the worst coronavirus death tolls in Europe, after datapublished on Tuesday showed fatalities topped 24,000nine days ago.

A day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke of success indealing with the outbreak, the new figures showed the weekending April 17 was Britain's deadliest since comparable recordsbegan in 1993.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said 21,284 people haddied in England by April 17 with mentions of COVID-19 on theirdeath certificate. Together with figures from Scotland, Walesand Northern Ireland, the total United Kingdom death toll was atleast 24,000 as of April 19.

"The United Kingdom is going to be right up there among theworst-hit nations in the initial surge," said Bill Hanage,associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard's T.H. ChanSchool of Public Health.

"With the most optimistic views of the amount of immunitythat might be being generated, it would be still not be close tohaving enough to be able to return to normal," he told Reuters.

Unlike the hospital death tolls announced daily by thegovernment, the fresh figures include deaths in communitysettings, such as care homes where overall fatalities havetripled in a few weeks.

Overall, Tuesday's figures for COVID-19 deaths in Englandand Wales up to April 17 were more than 50 per centhigher than thedaily toll for deaths in hospitals initially announced by thegovernment.

The figures underline the scale of the challenge facingJohnson as he returns to work after himself recovering from COVID-19,the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and thedangers of relaxing Britain's lockdown too soon.

He warned on Monday that it was still too dangerous to relaxstringent measures wreaking havoc on the economy, for fear of adeadly second outbreak.

In a reminder that much is still unknown about the novelcoronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock appeared to saythat some children with no underlying health conditions had diedfrom a rare inflammatory disease linked to COVID-19. But the British health ministry later clarified that hehad been speaking about COVID-19 more generally.

"We are not aware of any confirmed cases of children dyingfrom this syndrome," a ministry spokespersonsaid Tuesday. "The ministerdid not say that there are confirmed cases of children dying fromthis syndrome."

Hancock had said the condition was a new disease believed tohave been caused by the coronavirus.

Italian and British medical experts are investigating apossible link between the COVID-19 pandemic and clusters of severe inflammatory disease among infants who are arriving inhospital with high fevers and swollen arteries. While those investigations are ongoing,junior British interior ministerVictoria Atkins said parents should be vigilant.

"It demonstrates just how fast-moving this virus is and howunprecedented it is in its effect," Atkins told Sky News.

U.K. crisis

The ONS bases its figures on mentions of COVID-19 in deathcertificates, including suspected cases rather than those whoactually tested positive.

Scotland last week reported 1,616 deaths that mentionedCOVID-19 on the death certificate as of April 19. NorthernIreland posted 276 as of April 17. Another 1,016 had died inWales.

A UK death toll of more than 24,000 puts it among theworst-hit in Europe, exceeding France which also counts deathsin care homes by about 5,000 at that time.

Britain's true toll may be closer to Spain or evenItaly, Europe's worst-affected countries, although theirreporting of deaths outside hospital is patchy so exactcomparisons are difficult.

The latest daily figures released by Britain's healthministry for COVID-19 deaths in hospitals hit 21,678 on Tuesday.

Including all causes of death, 22,351 people died in Englandand Wales in the 16th week of 2020, the biggest total sincecomparable records began in 1993, the ONS said.

This was 11,854 more than average for the week. Given thatonly 8,758 cases mentioned COVID-19 in death certificates, it is possible that even the comprehensive ONS data are undercountingthe true toll.

Last week, a Financial Times analysis based on the gapbetween the significant increase in all deaths and those thatmentioned coronavirus put Britain's true death toll at over40,000.