You may be wondering why the number of coronavirus-related deaths have been starkly different from country to country during the pandemic.

When comparing statistics, it is important to remember that every country has had a different experience of the pandemic for a range of factors.

Johns Hopkins University, which has been collating coronavirus data, says these factors include the relative testing regimes, demographics and healthcare resources of each country.

It says the mortality rate is “one of the most important ways to measure the burden of Covid-19”.

The university has been tracking mortality rate in the 10 worst-affected countries. It has done so in two different ways: per 100 confirmed virus cases and per 100,000 population.

The data paints a bleak picture for European countries.

The top three countries with the most deaths per 100,000 people are Spain (35.5), Italy (32.2) and Belgium (29.2), the university says.

Conversely, the top three countries with the most deaths per 100 confirmed virus cases are Italy (12.8%), the UK (12.4%) and Belgium (11.9%), it says.

Johns Hopkins University Copyright: Johns Hopkins University