Britain surpasses Italy with most reported coronavirus deaths in Europe

The grim milestone for Britain — fuzzy as it is — leaped to the top of news websites and broadcasts here, and it was the first question for Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab at Tuesday’s evening news conference.

“All I would just say is, first of all, 29,427 lives lost is a massive tragedy, something in this country, on this scale, in this way, we’ve never seen before,” Raab answered.

In his government’s defense, he said, “I don’t think we’ll get a real verdict on how well countries have done until the pandemic is over and, particularly, until we’ve got comprehensive international data on all cause of mortality.”