The ONS announced on Monday that there were 40,467 deaths registered in England in July, which is 4.8% more than in June, and 7.6% more than the five-year average. In fact, the number of deaths registered in England was above the five-year average in all four weeks of last month.
These increases make sense, given that there has been a small uptick in COVID-19 deaths associated with the ‘Delta wave’. Although COVID-19 was only the ninth leading cause of death in July, deaths from the first eight causes were all below their five-year averages.
However, because the English population is ageing, the absolute number of people at risk of dying each year is going up. You’d therefore expect to see a greater number of deaths each year, even without a pandemic. What’s more, people who die from COVID-19 tend to be slightly older than those dying of other causes, so the average COVID-19 death is associated with fewer life-years lost.
For these reasons, it’s more informative to track age-adjusted measures of mortality. In July, the age-standardised mortality rate was only 1.3% higher than in May, and was approximately equal to the five-year average. (The exact figure was marginally higher, but the percentage difference was only 0.4%.)
This chart from the ONS shows the age-standardised mortality rate for the first seven months of the year, each year, going back to 2001:
Although 2021’s figure was higher than the figure for 2019, it was 3.6% lower than the figure for 2015 and 2.0% lower than the figure for 2018. This means that – despite higher-than-expected mortality in the winter – the overall level of mortality in the first seven months of 2021 was still lower than three years before.
As a matter of fact, the age-standardised rate from January through July was only 0.8% higher than the five-year average. Another month without many excess deaths and 2021 will officially be an ‘average year’ for English mortality.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The problem, is the panickers will just claim it’s only due to their panic measures – masks, lockdowns and mass vaccination with experimental “emergency authorised” treatments – that we haven’t experienced the mass death they fantasised about.
That’s why they were and are so keen to eliminate all the control groups – countries without lockdowns and mask mandates, and the unvaxxed. Pure evil. It’s one thing to commit a crime, quite another to commit further crimes in covering up the initial crime. Steve Sailer once made quite a good case for the death penalty being reserved for people who murder witnesses to their crimes in cold blood.
Pretty sound, Steve Sailer, in general. Have’t seen his stuff for a while, so not sure what position he has taken on the coronapanic.
Sadly he was/is something of a bedwetter.
Shame. Another one, like so many, who failed when the real test came, then.
Veteran Soldier: We’re Seeing The Tyranny That’s Happening In This Country
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIoG-jrKKoc
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
(also Wednesdays from 2pm)
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
The problem is that people don’t know or at least pretend not to know that average means some years will be higher and other years will be lower. Perhaps a distribution would be more useful, then outliers would be more obvious.
I think everyone deserves to be better than average!
At the school on Lake Woebegone written about by Garrison Keillor, all the pupils are above average.
The teacher was one N.Ferguson…
Very good.
Oh FFS! Short term averages? – of a period of anonymously low mortality.
Get a decent baseline if you want to do a contextual analysis. We know already that 2020-21 isn’t exceptional.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-extra-infant-deaths-prompted-covid-.html
Their calculations indicated that an additional 267, 208 infants in low- and middle-income countries died in 2020, corresponding to just short of a 7% increase in the number of infant deaths expected for that year.
Not Covid deaths, but lockdown-caused deaths
Yellow Card Report Data – 11th Aug 2021
Thanks for posting this. I’m going to show it to some of the sheeple and vaccine fanatics I know. I’ll be interested to see some of their responses. I’m pretty sure a lot of them will look at this with a blank expression while their eyes glaze over and simply deny that it’s true or say it’s some ‘conspiracy theory’. Maybe I’ll get through to one or two of them, maybe…….
Always worth repeating such analyses. Just to calm the waters of nothing else
Exactly. Thanks, Noah.
Although COVID-19 was only the ninth leading cause of death in July, deaths from the first eight causes were all below their five-year averages.
I suspect the Covid statistics include people who died primarily from one of the other eight causes, but just happened to test positive for Covid. Going into the future, I expect the stats will show an increase in mortality due to the lockdown – in particular, an increase in cancer deaths through missed diagnosis or delayed treatment. Tragedy, really, as many of these deaths would have been preventable had there been a less panicky and more sensible approach to dealing with Covid.
Maybe this will blow vaccine passports out of the water for more people….
It’ll be the fault of the unvaxed – the only unknown is what illogical mental gymnastics will be used to “justify” this claim.
I’ve seen an estimated attendance of 50,000. Now let’s say for the sake of argument that about 50,000 attended the last big anti-lockdown demo in London…you know, one of the biggest threats to mankind. How many ‘cases’ resulting from that were reported in the media? ‘Crickets’, I believe.
There has been a part of me that has wanted jabbed only events to take place just so this could inevitably happen, and those of us without shit for brains can say for the millionth time, ‘see we told you’. It’s a bit like on those jabbed only cruises where people were testing positive. But I’ve now lost count of what number nail in the coffin this would represent for the jab passport. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it probably doesn’t matter.
As noted by a contributor above me, if there’s one thing that has astounded me over the past 18 months, it is the level of mental gymnastics and logical fallacies that occur when faced with mountains of evidence. This is the sort of thing I would’ve probably sent to my kool-aid drinking father to see what spin he can manage to put on it. These days I don’t even bother though, it used to provide an amusing back and forth, but now it’s just sad to see
Trouble is they’ll likely use things like this to justify lockdown infinity…
All these half-in, half-out solutions. We need to toughen up against this virus, as that’s the only thing it respects. I urge immediate adoption of the following:
Strict adoption of these sensible measured practices will stop the virus in its track and it will not have the opportunity to kill any more people.
Any measures less than these are soft and should be condemned by all right minded people who support climate change, being woke, and hating Trump.
people’s homes should wear masks. perhaps over the letterbox and chimney pot
More basic research into multiverse theories so everyone can have their OWN UNIVERSE.
Not tough enough, the virus will still spread even in those circumstances. What we need is to remove all hosts of the virus. Therefore we will need to have a mass suicide. At 11pm tonight every single person in the country must kill themselves.
Anyone who tests positive should be executed immediately.
If they had complied with the measures they wouldn’t have tested positive, so it’s their own fault and, quite frankly, society doesn’t need to endure their selfishness.
hard to tell exactly from he graph – but its probably fair to say that
“2021 was the 4th from lowest overall mortality rate ever recorded – so far”
It’s an EMERGENCY!
anytime in the 20th Century we’d have thanked god for a mortality rate of 2020
Isn’t it interesting to note how Age Standardised mortality in Wales has constantly been worse than England. These excess deaths over the years must far out number anything caused bv Covid19. Has anyone been shouting from the roof tops that something must be done to save the Welsh. Have all the chippies and takeaways in Merthyr been closed?
No is the short answer, probably because there is no money to be made there. Follow the money is always a good way to try and work out what is going on.
I always keep a copy of this graph in my back pocket and often pull it out when confronted by someone who doesn’t believe me. Showing as it does the Age Standardised mortality for the last 20 years but with the year order randomised and no key as to which year is which.
I then challenge them to identify the year of the killer virus. So far no one has got it correct.
2020 = T?
Nope
2020 = I?
That would be my guess, since I recall you had to go back to 2008 to get a higher death year (age and pop adjusted), and in 2008 the trend was still down, into the low of the past few years. I, or one of the ones either side of it in number terms – O or R. (I’ve seen this graphic before – it’s a good one – but I don’t remember which one was 2008, if it was even the same reordering)
yes – that’s how I tried to work it out. 2020 was worse than 2009-2019 inclusive and 2020 was better than 2008 and every year before (until the beginning of time)
It’s E, isn’t it? (think you posted it here before – I wouldn’t be able to tell from the actual graph!)
Like it- I do a similar thing with mask mandates- absolutely no one has got it right, but absolutely no one thinks that mask mandates are wrong. How can you deal with someone who, when presented with proof that masks make no difference, stake categorically that masks must and do make a difference?
I appreciate DS as much as anyone for its role in putting out information that questions and often debunks the official narrative.
The thing is, many of the supposed debates are stale and we are stuck in a WWI trench warfare type situation with no advance on either side.
Death rates: we say it’s at normal levels, they say it’s because of the measures.
Lockdowns: we say the cost is disproportionately high, they say it isn’t and/or you can’t put a value on a life.
Masks: we say there is no evidence they work, they say they work.
Vaccine safety: we say at best we don’t know, at worst the evidence is piling up of unprecedented damage, they say reports of damage are exaggerated and in any case much lower than the damage caused by covid.
Vaccine effectiveness: we say they’re not very effective, they say they are highly effective in preventing hospitalisations and death
Vaccine passports: we say they are tyrannical and make no sense because vaccines don’t stop infection, they say vaccines are the way out of this and so passports are necessary to make sure everyone gets vaccinated.
Making the argument for any of these issues feels about as effective as sending waves of soldiers charging towards the enemy trench and a barrage of gunfire.
I agree. Let’s hit fast forward and skip through the boring bits and straight to the end-game. This morning, I was casually walking through the town centre, with my yellow six-pointed star badge which says Unvaccinated. People were hurling abuse as I walked past, spitting, shouting, losing their minds. A posse of storm-troopers came round the corner, saw me, out and about with my badge, sprayed me with a bio-disruptant, snapped the handcuffs on and dragged me away. I’m now typing this with my teeth on a smuggled tiny phone here in the quarantine facility as I await the visit from the re-educator. Damn I miss the old days.
Lucky you to get so much attention! Personally, I think you got off lightly.
Making the argument for any of these issues feels about as effective as sending waves of soldiers charging towards the enemy trench and a barrage of gunfire.
I agree – and I am for the most part arguing from the “they” point of view. What depresses me is that you can very likely predict someone’s view on all the questions by knowing their view on just one of them. It strongly suggests that this is more a matter of tribal loyalty then seeking after truth.
There is very little scope for something like this:
Death rates: excess ASM varied a great deal over the 18 months since the virus started. It is too early to draw conclusions.
Lockdowns: the cost depends on the detail of the lockdown, its timing, and its duration. Sometimes it is worth it. Sometimes it isn’t. Mostly we don’t know yet.
Masks: the evidence is inconclusive.
Vaccine safety: very little evidence that vaccines are not safe but sufficient uncertainty not to recommend for low risk groups i.e children.
Vaccine effectiveness: initially highly effective in preventing infections, hospitalisations and death. Now apparent that they are less effective in preventing infections against Delta and that efficacy declines more rapidly than hoped.
Vaccine passports: it depends how they are used.
I would add one more:
Lockdowns: marginally effective once an outbreak is underway but effective for suppressing outbreaks early on.
Broadly your position is as follows:
Panickers: oh my god we’re all going to die if we don’t panic!
Dissenters: Calm down, it’s not that bad.
Panickers: We must force everyone to do x to save us, or we’ll all die! It’s an EMERGENCY!
Dissenters: We shouldn’t force people to do that because the costs are too high and there’s no evidence it will make any difference anyway. And calm down!
Much later, after huge costs, economic and social, political strife and coercion, and endless debate:
Panickers: …. So, we’ve clearly established that there is some evidence for x having a slight impact at the margins. So that proves you were wrong – it doesn’t make no difference.
Rational minority: You rather missed the point there, didn’t you….
Your loyalty to the cause does your credit.
Your uncanny ability to know what people really think although it is not what they wrote is even more amazing.
“Your loyalty to the cause does your credit.”
A good cause deserves loyalty. I’m happy to be loyal to the cause of liberty, tolerance and reason.
Not sure how you excuse being loyal to the case of fear, authoritarian coercion and intolerance of dissent.
“Your uncanny ability to know what people really think although it is not what they wrote is even more amazing.”
Gosh, I think I’ve heard that somewhere before. And similarly on this occasion, in fact what I wrote was based upon what you wrote.
Not sure how you excuse being loyal to the case of fear, authoritarian coercion and intolerance of dissent.
I am not concerned with being loyal in this case. Hence my ambivalent attitude to lockdowns.
Gosh, I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.
Yes – and not just from me – food for thought perhaps?
And similarly on this occasion, in fact what I wrote was based upon what you wrote.
Please show how
“Oh my god we’re all going to die if we don’t panic!” and “We must force everyone to do x to save us, or we’ll all die! It’s an EMERGENCY!” follow from what I wrote.
“Yes – and not just from me – food for thought perhaps?“
Not in this case – two very different situations.
“Please show how
“Oh my god we’re all going to die if we don’t panic!” and “We must force everyone to do x to save us, or we’ll all die! It’s an EMERGENCY!” follow from what I wrote.”
Those are just background assertions that apply definitionally to all panickers such as yourself, who thought the best response to a fairly routine respiratory pandemic was to panic, throw all accepted planning in the bin and lurch into “emergency” measures.
You can be ambivalent to lockdowns if you feel they’re OK, but I can’t since I was forced to lockdown even though I thought it was bloody stupid.
Isn’t extrapolating meaning rather the point of reading someone’s comments?
Indeed, but as in WW1 it’s hard to see an alternative that doesn’t mean giving up.
This sums up my view of modern life – regardless of Covid. Absolute waste of time trying to convince anyone that the people they vote for may just be fibbing, incompetent, obsessed with power- so why bother? Just get on with your own life as best you can, mitigate your taxes as best you can because it’s, like, your money man, and try not to laugh out loud when someone tells you that what you hear on the BBC or read in the papers is DEFINITELY TRUE because they wouldn’t lie! Life is less stressful and more rewarding, trust me.
In other news, Australia’s truckies are getting ready to stick it to the governments.
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/australian-truck-drivers-vow-block-every-major-highway-radical-anti-lockdown-strike
I suppose the regime has a choice – suppress them by force (assuming they can bribe or bully enough drivers to keep the basics moving), the way they suppressed the dissenting marchers the other day, or do a deal with them.
The former would probably be a mistake, if the latter is available to them. I think we have to hope they make that mistake, because that kind of over-reach somewhere is the only way we will break through on this panic.
If this driver is representative, attempts at suppression will be exactly the mistake you describe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IulkgicPAK4&t=9s
I hope he is!
Australia painted as a ‘dystopian nightmare’ as footage goes viral
Power mad and drunk with it Aussie politicians – when is the next State/Country wide elections I wonder.
Answers on a postcard please to…..
Don’t comply. Ditch the masks. – FIGHT BACK BETTER – Updated information, resources and links: https://www.LCAHub.org/