• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Why Are There So Many Heart Attacks?

by Will Jones
25 February 2022 6:10 PM

The Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART) reports this week on the unusually high number of heart attacks experienced in England since the end of May 2021 (see above). The data come from a weekly report from the ten ambulance trusts in England and show the number of emergency calls for cardiac or respiratory arrests. (The two are grouped together, HART explains, because it is not always clear whether a cardiac arrest was precipitated by a respiratory arrest.)

The two most significant points, HART says, are the dramatic rise in arrest calls since spring 2021 and the significant increase in the baseline (the dotted line) in the same period.

The baseline, of course, is crucial for establishing what is ‘normal’ and ‘excess’, yet the reports give no explanation as to why the baseline has risen so dramatically. As HART points out: “The expected number of daily arrest calls rose suddenly in March by about 50 per day – around 30% higher than before.” Why did the ‘normal’ or ‘expected’ number of arrest calls suddenly rise so dramatically in spring 2021? We should be told. It doesn’t appear that it would be explained simply by the inclusion of the 2020 data in the baseline.

It is doubly odd, HART notes, because there is no change in the baseline for other conditions such as overdoses, falls or injuries. The only other condition whose baseline has shifted significantly is the related category of “chest pain”, which, HART says, “has risen from a steady 1,600 per day to 2,000”. Nonetheless, the actual number of calls for chest pain has stayed around the previous baseline of 1,600, meaning the increased baseline makes it look like the figures are now running below average.

HART notes that prior to 2021 the peak daily calls were around 400 arrest calls in a day. However, during winter 2021-22 the peak surged beyond an unprecedented 500 in a single day (this isn’t shown in the chart above because the figures are a seven-day rolling average). 

Using the 2019-20 baseline the number of arrest calls since May 2021 has been a huge 30% above expected levels, amounting to around 27,800 additional arrest calls – over 500 extra every day on average. This is significant because an estimated 90-97% of these people will have died as a result. A further comparison is that 2021 figures are up 20% on 2019, while 2020 figures are only up 6% on 2019.

Looking at excess deaths, it appears that a step change occurs around the same time, in late May 2021 (see below).

This does not correspond with a rise in Covid deaths (the orange line), which didn’t come until July. Rather, these arrest calls and deaths are associated with the worrying rise in non-Covid deaths in the same time period (which has occurred not just in the U.K. but across Europe), which as yet remains unexplained.

There is perhaps a broad correspondence with reported infections during the Delta wave (below) – though the rise in infections during June seems to begin somewhat late to explain a sharp rise in arrests in late May.

England

May 17th was Step 3 of the ‘Road Map‘ out of lockdown in England, when most restrictions on outdoor gatherings were lifted. Is it possible that the step change in arrests in late May was triggered by the resumption of more energetic activity among people who had remained sedentary under restrictions?

More generally across Western Europe there was a steep rise in non-Covid mortality in April and May 2021, beginning somewhat earlier than in the U.K. (see below, blue line). Some of this rise will be the bounce-back after the dip caused by mortality displacement due to the large winter Covid wave. Unfortunately, this phenomenon makes it hard to unpick how much mortality is additional to that.

What role might the vaccines be playing? While serious heart injury is a known side-effect of the Covid vaccines, it’s hard to see the thousands of additional arrests since May as driven exclusively by immediate injuries from the vaccines, as the vaccines were being rolled out from December in the oldest and most vulnerable groups, who are also those most likely to suffer an arrest. It remains possible that the signal for this is hidden under the winter Covid wave and subsequent mortality displacement, but that does rather leave one arguing from silence. However, given that the vaccines are one of the big differences between 2021 and 2020, any connection they might have with the wave of cardiac arrests and non-Covid deaths ought to be thoroughly investigated. The other big difference in 2021 was the Delta variant. Could non-Covid cardiac deaths be a trick of Delta, possibly in combination with the vaccines? Nothing should be ruled out in getting to the bottom of this.

Tags: Covid deathsCOVID-19Excess deathsHARTHeart failureNon-CovidSafetySide-effectsVaccines

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Did Lockdown Drive Putin Mad?

Next Post

News Round-Up

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

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.

94 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

Episode 36 of the Sceptic: Karl Williams on Starmer’s Phoney Immigration Crackdown, Dan Hitchens on the Assisted Suicide Bill and Tom Jones on Reform’s Local Council Challenge

by Richard Eldred
16 May 2025
0

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Chinese ‘Kill Switches’ Found in US Solar Farms

15 May 2025
by Will Jones

News Round-Up

16 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Spy Agency Report on the Alleged “Extremism” of AfD Turns Out to Be So Stupid That it Destroys all Momentum for Banning the Party

16 May 2025
by Eugyppius

The Folly of Solar – a Dot on the Horizon Versus a Blight on the Land

16 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Civil Servants Threaten to Strike Over Trans Ban in Women’s Lavatories

16 May 2025
by Will Jones

The Folly of Solar – a Dot on the Horizon Versus a Blight on the Land

29

Civil Servants Threaten to Strike Over Trans Ban in Women’s Lavatories

26

Spy Agency Report on the Alleged “Extremism” of AfD Turns Out to Be So Stupid That it Destroys all Momentum for Banning the Party

19

News Round-Up

18

Chinese ‘Kill Switches’ Found in US Solar Farms

27

Trump’s Lesson in Remedial Education

16 May 2025
by Dr James Allan

Spy Agency Report on the Alleged “Extremism” of AfD Turns Out to Be So Stupid That it Destroys all Momentum for Banning the Party

16 May 2025
by Eugyppius

The Folly of Solar – a Dot on the Horizon Versus a Blight on the Land

16 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Renaud Camus on the Destruction of Western Education

15 May 2025
by Dr Nicholas Tate

‘Why Can’t We Talk About This?’

15 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

POSTS BY DATE

February 2022
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28  
« Jan   Mar »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment
Perfecty
Do you wish to receive notifications of new articles?
Notifications preferences