The United Kingdom has overtaken Italy with the most coronavirus-related deaths in Europe.
Figures released Tuesday show that the country now has more than 32,000 deaths, making it the nation with the most fatalities on the continent and the second-most confirmed deaths in the world after the United States, Reuters reported.
“I don’t think we’ll get a real verdict on how countries have done until the pandemic is over, and particularly until we’ve got international comprehensive data on all-cause mortality,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab. According to a spokesman with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office, the country has passed the peak of the pandemic but still remains in a “dangerous phase.”
Johnson was the most prominent political figure in the world to be diagnosed with the coronavirus. The 55-year-old was discharged from St. Thomas’ Hospital in London on Easter Sunday after recovering from COVID-19 complications. Johnson was hospitalized on April 5 and moved to the ICU for three days when his health worsened.
A tally from Johns Hopkins University found that though the U.K had the most COVID-19-related deaths in Europe, Spain edged the U.K. in infections with less than 1,000 more confirmed cases than the U.K. Spain has had slightly more than 228,000 infections and almost 27,000 deaths. Italy, an early hot spot during the pandemic, has had more than 221,000 cases of COVID-19 and almost 31,000 deaths.
The U.S. has shouldered the lion’s share of cases, with more than 1.3 million and at least 82,300 deaths.
