Pushed by media reports about increasing death tolls in nursing homes around the country, the French government has been providing two mortality figures during its daily briefing for the past two weeks now: deaths in hospitals and deaths in nursing homes.

As of tonight, April 22, the figures are:

• Deaths in hospitals: 13,236 (+336 in the last 24 hours)
  
• Deaths in nursing homes: 8,104 (+208 in the last 24 hours)

A total of 21,340 deaths attributed to COVID-19.

Today's fatalities number for the UK is: 18,100 (+759), but these are only the deaths in NHS hospitals; nursing homes deaths are still not tallied.

In international comparisons, France is always shown ahead of the UK because of the higher "total" figures. However, counting only the hospital deaths in the UK is skewing the comparison as you point out: by that figure (deaths in hospitals) the UK has been well ahead of France for over a week now.

The other extreme is Belgium where just about any death that can be attributed to C-19 is counted, which gives the country one of the highest rates of deaths per million of total population.

As you pointed out, counting, undercounting, not counting, all these follow different political motives; mostly trying to hide the lack of preparation and slow responses under the carpet.