How does the UK compare to other coronavirus-hit countries?

Hannah Twiggs looks at the peaks of Covid-19 across the globe

(Getty/iStock)

Since the first reported case of coronavirus in the UK on 31 January, Britain – along with the US, Spain, Italy, France and Germany – is one of the countries most affected by the outbreak.

But charting the total number of cases reported can be a little misleading, not only because without mass testing we will never know the true number of people infected by the disease, but because it cannot provide a snapshot of what is actually happening day-to-day.

The five-day rolling average of daily new cases from day one of infection, however, paints a much clearer picture of the rise and fall of the outbreak.