Mike Tomlinson has created a certain amount of controversy by asserting that Northern Ireland’s COVID-19 death rate is disproportionate with that of the Republic (see article). In particular, he notes that the per capita rate of deaths in hospital settings (which is all that is reported for NI) is higher than that for the Republic (which normally reports all deaths, but for which the hospital deaths figure is also available). For instance, yesterday’s data says the cumulative figure for hospital deaths in the RoI is 386, while for NI it was 250.

Scaling by the relative populations, that suggests an expected NI hospital death rate of 386 * 1.891 / 4.904 = 148.8. 250 is a lot more than 149, even allowing for some incomparability in how the stats are collected.
Continue reading COVID-19 deaths: NI and IRL compared →