The wave of excess non-Covid deaths continues. The latest Government figures from the ONS, published this morning, take the tally of excess deaths from causes other than COVID-19 to 17,839 since April 23rd, when the recent surge began. This is 9.5% more deaths than expected, based on an average of the previous five years. Overall excess deaths, including Covid deaths, have been 13% higher than expected during the period.
In the week ending September 9th, the most recent week for which data are available, 10,753 deaths were registered in England and Wales, which is 938 (9.6%) above the five-year average for the week. Of these, 365 mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate as a contributory cause and 223 mentioned COVID-19 as underlying cause, leaving 715 deaths from a different underlying cause.
Here are the excess non-Covid deaths by date of occurrence since February, plotted with the spring vaccine booster rollout figures owing to an apparent correlation, at least at the initial stages.
The disturbing trend of surging excess non-Covid deaths is not restricted to the U.K., but is also being seen in Australia and across Europe.
Investigations into what lies behind the worrying pattern are now belatedly appearing, though notably none as yet include vaccination status.
Stuart McDonald, Co-Chair of the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group, has written an analysis, in which he notes that many of the deaths are due to cardiovascular disease (CVD). He suggests that the causes are likely to lie in the impact of the virus on the heart or in problems with accessing healthcare both currently and during the pandemic.
The ‘Swiss Doctor’ (i.e., Swiss Policy Research) has similarly argued that Covid itself it likely to blame (alongside heatwaves and wrong baselines), noting the strong temporal association between when the non-Covid excess occurs and Covid waves.
This week the Office for National Statistics has also published its latest report on excess deaths. Sarah Caul, ONS Head of Mortality Analysis, implied the virus is likely to blame, saying the excess non-Covid deaths in 2022 have been “driven by higher than expected numbers of deaths since March, which could be caused by a combination of factors. Across March, April and May we saw increases in deaths due to cardiac arrhythmias [irregular heartbeat], predominantly among those aged 80 and above. Further work needs to be done to understand any link between the long-term effects of Covid and increasing cardiac deaths.”
The ONS report shows that excess mortality in May and June was 15.4% and 8.6% above average respectively, with 76% of the excess deaths in May and 82% in June not being due to COVID-19.
Ms. Caul suggested that the mild winter may have resulted in some “mortality displacement”, with below average deaths during the winter leading to above average deaths now – though this seems to ignore somewhat the 150,000 excess deaths in the past two and a half years, which will have caused substantial mortality displacement of their own, in the opposite direction.
Could it be the lack of access to healthcare that’s causing the deaths, as suggested by Stuart McDonald? It can’t be helping, of course. But since heart problems (and more generally cardiovascular disease) are among the main causes, the central question is why more people are dying of CVD. Is this purely or mainly due to lack of access to treatment? This seems unlikely. It’s true that NHS elective and emergency admissions dipped considerably during 2020 and 2021, as shown below.
The great length of the current hospital admission delays are also well-known. These are mainly caused by ‘bed-blocking’ preventing the movement of patients efficiently through the hospital system, which has a number of causes, but increased demand (patients are sicker) is an important factor. Some of this is self-reinforcing – the delays are making people sicker, causing more delays. But there must also be an independent driver of demand, something that is a cause of serious cardiovascular disease. No doubt some of this is a result of missed operations and procedures during 2020 and 2021. However, the preponderance of CVD-related deaths and the lack of excess cancer deaths suggests that something besides lack of access to healthcare is going on (though admittedly the cancer deaths may be on their way).
It’s also relevant here that the excess cardiovascular non-Covid deaths didn’t begin until mid-2021 and were not a feature of the first 16 months of the pandemic.
They began around the same time as the Delta variant emerged, and have largely continued since, albeit with a gap during the winter when the mildness of Omicron (in the U.K. at least) resulted in a low-mortality winter. The temporal association with the Delta and Omicron waves is what leads many to suggest that the virus is triggering the deaths in some way. It’s also well known that cardiovascular deaths are often associated with acute respiratory infection, and Covid is no exception (though whether this risk continues longer term is disputed, and limited autopsy evidence suggests that Covid, when fatal as a respiratory infection, does not routinely attack the heart).
The question, though, is why have cardiovascular deaths associated with Covid waves become much more pronounced since mid-2021?
The Japanese Government has noted this association, reporting that 89% of those who died of Covid in the latest Omicron wave had only moderate respiratory symptoms, up from 57% in 2021’s Delta wave. It added that a smaller percentage of COVID-19 patients have developed serious pneumonia as the vaccination rate has increased, while more have died because the coronavirus “causes their pre-existing conditions to worsen”. This seems to indicate that the vaccine is playing a role in the shift from textbook respiratory Covid deaths to deaths from other causes triggered by the virus.
In Singapore, the Ministry of Health has analysed the country’s excess deaths and found that the gap between Covid deaths and excess deaths can be explained by “deaths in patients recently infected with COVID-19 in the past 90 days”. Also, in “persons without recent infection, no additional excess deaths were found” – seeming to confirm the link with the virus, at least in Singapore. The Ministry also looked at vaccination status, but only of the ‘with Covid’ (test-positive) deaths. It found the unvaccinated were over-represented – but we already know the unvaccinated are over-represented in test-positive Covid deaths. It’s the non-Covid (test-negative) deaths that there is a big question mark over, and which the report from Japan suggests may be linked with the vaccine.
Many researchers have homed in on the virus’s spike protein as being peculiarly harmful to the heart and circulatory system. Dr. Zhiqiang Lin, an Assistant Professor of Cardiology at the Masonic Medical Research Institute in New York, exposed human heart tissue in the lab to spike proteins from COVID-19 and HCoV-NL63, a coronavirus that infects the respiratory system without harming hearts, and found the Covid spike sparks an immune response in heart cells whereas the other coronavirus did not. He believes this causes excessive inflammation which damages heart cells and causes myocarditis.
Dr. David Strain, a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Exeter who specialises in viral infections, argues that there is a danger period for cardiovascular disease of six to eight weeks after infection: “This is the period when we see rates of heart attacks, strokes and blood clots going up. During this post-infection danger period, Covid picks on your weakest parts, such as your heart and arteries.” He says there is worrying evidence suggesting that the virus can hide dormant in our bodies for months. “If the virus can hide in the body then anything that weakens a person’s immune defences – such as physical stress, infection or reinfection with another strain of Covid – may allow the virus to re-emerge. There is evidence to suggest Long Covid can be caused by the virus persisting, and having surges subsequently may cause cardiovascular disease.”
There is certainly evidence that the spike protein can persist in individuals and is linked with immune inflammation and Long Covid symptoms – a diagnostic has even been launched based on this research. I am not aware of evidence that the virus as a whole can hide dormant in the body and resurge later, though perhaps I have missed those studies. But with the stress on the role of the spike protein in causing heart inflammation there is a stark omission from much of this discussion, namely the Covid vaccines, which are injected into muscle, can get into the blood, and induce cells to produce the spike protein in quantity wherever they end up. Spike protein from the vaccines has also been shown by the same researchers who developed the Long Covid diagnostic to persist in the body for weeks or months and cause immune inflammation; the researchers even said they couldn’t be confident their findings about Long Covid weren’t due to spike protein from vaccination rather than infection.
The Covid vaccines are known to cause serious adverse effects on the heart, with one study in Thailand (which is yet to be peer-reviewed) finding cardiovascular adverse effects in around a third of teenagers following Pfizer vaccination, and heart inflammation in one in 43. Limited autopsy evidence also confirms fatal effects of vaccination on the heart.
In addition to this, there is growing evidence that the spike protein can cause autoimmune damage owing to its similarity to human proteins, as the immune system attacks its own tissue. If the spike protein (or the mRNA producing it) is remaining in the body for weeks or months and causing immune inflammation, including in the heart, could an infection with the virus, by triggering a full-scale immune response, spark a heightened immune reaction to the persisting spike protein in and around the heart (and elsewhere) and cause serious injury? Such mechanisms are certainly possible.
A picture is emerging here of Covid waves since the vaccine rollout triggering waves of heart deaths. It remains conceivable that the vaccines are playing only a limited role in this, but on the currently available evidence that is looking increasingly unlikely. There is still a dearth of reliable data published on all-cause mortality by vaccination status (the ONS published some, but as Professor Norman Fenton pointed out, the dataset is missing thousands of deaths, miscategorises deaths and underestimates the size of the unvaccinated population).
What we do know is that Sarah Caul from the ONS said that the excess heart deaths since the spring have been “predominantly among those aged 80 and above”, a cohort we know to be highly vaccinated – 96% with at least one dose and over 78% with a fourth booster dose since the spring.
What the authorities need to do now is stop making excuses and release the all-cause mortality data by vaccination status – including those vaccinated less than seven or 14 days before death, and with no missing deaths or population errors – so we can all see whether there is any relationship between vaccination status and deaths from heart diseases and other causes.
The fact that it is September 2022 and these data are still nowhere to be seen, either here or in any other country, only increases suspicions that there is something they don’t want us to see.
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.
Attenborough has long made it plain that he hates human beings and most especially melanin deficient old UK male human beings, with a passion that would once have earned him a comfy padded cell.
In my case the hatred is proudly reciprocated. I hope to dance on the old barsteward’s grave.
Disagree with the silly old sod by all means – I do too; but for crying out loud don’t follow the hysterical Left into the ‘dancing on graves’ sort of language.
Thanks for taking one for the team Chris, I for one would rather have my testicles whipped with a stinging nettle than watch anything the BBC churns out.
Priceless!!!
I’ll have to remember that one.
Up here in Australia, my feelings exactly regarding our ABC.
I love Australia, I used to work for a company in Perth, they sent me to Melbourne, Brisbane, Dampier, Broome and the like.
I was absolutely horrified to see the Australian government and the police’s reaction to covid. That was not the Oz I nearly moved to.
It was, and still is a shock to see one’s fellow Australians cheering on the police and politicians’ egregious behaviour. I naively expected a little resistance.
I must say though that Sky News Australia seems so much better than the crap churned out by Sky News UK. Although that is based on the limited amount of SKY Australia’s output I’ve seen
You mean you don’t enjoy the testicles/nettle thing? Tsk – get a life!
Dave’s mum Mary Attenborough (nee Clegg) was a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council. Interesting connections here with various eugenicists, Tavistock etc.
Oh yes. The first funder of the Marriage Guidance Council / aka Relate was the British Eugenics Society.
Not liking people all that much may be the tip of the stubbornly non-melting iceberg. (Are we perhaps the insects on Dave’s number plate?)
It all goes back a long way, don’t it?
I don’t have a TV licence so will be spared all of this unless I go round someones house and find they’re watching it.
It’s “must watch” TV in any cemetery
Elon Musk just destroyed a BBC interviewer in this Twitter spaces conversation (I know due to YouTube the word “destroyed” is overused, but in this case it’s true).
Quite amusing;
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1645989936284442624?s=61&t=AY3dxo4CPswl6wmndLEhaw
I’ve noticed more small birds of various hues in my (rural = racist) garden since the neighbours’ cats have got older & slower, and the jackdaw housing estate across the road is triple the size of last year. Yet more of those curious variables computer models & Attethunberg conveniently ignore.
It’s about time this barsteward struck out on his own and scouted a new route for destination depopulation.
A sort of modern day North West Passage.
“Of course, there are laudable environmental issues raised by this series, which was co-produced by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) in collaboration with the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). Sea-dredging for shell fish, unsustainable fishing, unnecessary use of pesticides and soil conservation are all significant ecological concerns.”
Are they? To whom? Based on what evidence? Speaking of “…unsourced claims as gospel truth…”
What exactly is ‘unsustainable’ fishing, or for that matter ‘sustainable’ fishing? Is the use of pesticides necessary to maintain Human food supplies, “unnecessary’ because it kills insects?
Wind turbines cannot provide sustainable electricity supply, require massive use of unnecessary pesticides and herbicides to clear and keep clear the area around them, kill hundreds of thousands of insects, kill thousands of birds and bats, are injurious to Human health.
I am struggling to identify what Attenborough has done wrong. He doesn’t quote sources but it is a popular TV programme not an academic paper. I can’t think of any TV documentary on any channel which gives its sources. Anyhow, Chris seems to have had no problem finding likely sources.
We then get some irrelevant discussion about what denominator those sources used when counting “our” species. For example, the RSPB report was based on 245 species that were selected because they were “naturally occurring species with self-sustaining populations”. The 405 species figure included every bird there was any chance of spotting in the UK “including some rare overseas visitors”. There is no reason why these excluded species should not have just as a large proportion of species on the red list as the included species. So to simply say that including them “would reduce the extinction percentage by half” is just wrong. The argument for mammals is no more persuasive. The RSPB report mentioned 11 out of 47 “mammals native to Britain”. Chris wants to extend the definition of “native” to 90 mammals. That may or may not be justified ( I can’t see the list of 90 mammals anywhere but there is a list of 107 mammals which includes 30 cetaceans including vagrants – as there are no sea mammals on the red list I strongly suspect the list of native mammals meant list of terrestrial land mammals ). Again – there is no reason to suppose the excluded mammals are less vulnerable – so you can’t simply substitute one denominator for another and claim the percentage is lower.
Next up is the repeated debate about extinction of numbers of flying insects. I pointed out elsewhere that the evidence is not confined to the car number plate survey. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809.
Then there is the headline in the pre-publicity material “that 38 million birds had vanished from British skies in the last 50 years”. We have no idea to what extent Attenborough was involved with this. (Chris’s complaint is that it does not mention that the latest figure was similar to the total in 2012. However, a little more reading of the same report reveals that while the overall number of birds may be fairly stable recently there were more and more species in decline. The headline is over simple but so is the response.)
Enough for one comment I think!
For example, the RSPB report was based on 245 species that were selected because they were “naturally occurring species with self-sustaining populations”. The 405 species figure included every bird there was any chance of spotting in the UK “including some rare overseas visitors”.
From the wording, it’s clear that the majority of the 160 omitted species are not rare overseas visitors. This means there are three groups of bird species involved here:
1) 245 species the RSPB wanted to include in the report.
2) A group of species which are rare overseas visitors and hence, should
be excluded. This group is of a size X known to the RSPB and X is smaller than 160.
3) A group of native species the RSPB didn’t want to include in the report for an unstated reason. It’s size Y is < 160 but Y > X.
This suggests that the RSPB is cherry-picking data in order to generate the intended kind of report and that the reference to some rare overseas vistors is a blind to distract from that.
The RSPB describes how it selected which species to include in some detail. It is a bit complicated so I won’t repeat it here but it is all in the report. There’s no hint of cherry picking. There’s no avoiding it- Chris’s reasoning is wrong.
The RSPB describes how it selected which species to include in some detail.
Ie, with a real lot of words. As usual. That’s always a red flag. The claim in the article is just When a different selection of species is being used, specifically, one including the about 40% of bird species the RSPB omitted, the picture changes. But some of these are rare overseas visitors! is not a valid argument against this different selection. And the original claim isn’t what it appears to be, either. It’s The RSPB believes that almost 30% of 245 native bird species might become exinct in the not-too-distant future. And that’s the same as The RSPB is certain that more than 70% of these species won’t become extinct anytime soon. But that’s obviously not the kind of headline these people want to generate.
Although the detail is complicated the essence of their selection is
As in previous BoCC reviews (see Eaton et al. 2015), we considered only naturally occurring species with self-sustaining populations,
The main point is not that the excluded 40% includes rare overseas visitors – although that is interesting. The point is that the excluded 40% (i.e. species that do not have self-sustaining populations) are just as likely to be threatened with extinction as the 60% that were surveyed. Chris’s maths only works if you assume that none of them are threatened with extinction. An assumption for which he provides no evidence whatsoever.
The RSPB believes that almost 30% of 245 native bird species might become exinct in the not-too-distant future. And that’s the same as The RSPB is certain that more than 70% of these species won’t become extinct anytime soon.
I am not sure the two statements are logically the same (it would be necessary to define them a bit more precisely to be sure) but anyhow I don’t find the headline: more than 70% of these species won’t become extinct anytime soon very comforting. It is a bit like being told you have a 70% chance of surviving the operation as opposed to a 30% chance of dying – not much to choose really!
The point is that the excluded 40% […] are just as likely to be threatened with extinction as the 60% that were surveyed.
That’s unknown.
And therefore, absent any other knowledge, just as likely to be threatened.
To put it another way – there is no reason to suppose they are less likely to be threatened and no reason to suppose they are more likely to be threatened. What is seems very unlikely is that none of them are threatened which is what would be necessary for Chris’s maths to be true.
There could be selection bias. Choose only those birds or mammals that are at risk and therefore the numbers are inflated.
Also there is no evidence that the species at risk of extinction is any different from what it was 50 or 100 or 1000 years ago.
Perhaps things are actually gettting better.
By now, everyone should know how this racism argument works: First, the relative quantity of people with property X is determined by dividing a guesstimate of the number of people with this property who are living in the country by another guesstimate for the total number of people living here (both numbers are really unknown) to arrive at a guesstimate quotient A. Then, the same is done for some identifiable subgroup of the total population which yields another guesstimate quotient B. Then, A and B are compared. The three possible scenarios are
1) A > B. That’s the desired outcome: The identifiable subgroup is said to be structurally or institutionally anti-Xist.
2) A = B. Nothing to be seen here, let’s try again with another identfiable subgroup.
3) A < B. Also a good outcome: The identifiable subgroup is structurally or institutionally oppressed by the structurally or institutionally anti-Xist general population.
Taking this into account, the English countryside is structurally racist because immigrants tend to flock to the cities as there are more opportunities for work there (and more other immigrants which makes for nicer socialising among like-minded people).
This is the familiar form of circular reasoning crusaders of the woke alway employ:
Premise P1: Guesstimate quotient differences are caused by anti-Xism.
Premise P2: Guesstimate quotient differs in the intended way for group Y.
Conclusion C1: Group Y is urally or onally ant-Xist because of P1 & P2.
And now for the other half:
Premise P1′ (same as conclusion C1): Group Y is known to be urally or onally anti-Xist.
Premise P2′: Guesstimate quotient differs for group Y
Conclusion C1′: Therefore, guesstimate quotient difference is proof of anti-Xisim because of P1′ and P2′ (sames as premise P1).
Depending on what’s to be demonstrated, either the first or the second half of this will be presented.
The best thing about Attenborough is his age. He hasn’t got long ……
I said to someone earlier in this thread: Don’t use the “He’ll be dead soon/Dance on his grave” line; it’s undignified and vicious. Argue against the things he says, not against his mortality – you gain nothing doing so and you look like a bully.
Attenborough would quite happily see the eradication of billions of humans from this planet yet a few of us happily awaiting his demise are bullies?
Your understanding of humanity’s dire predicament is what I would consider to be rather shallow.
Scattenborough and Resident Biden have the same scriptwriter.
Ole Joe held the ladder 🪜 as Neil Armstrong descended onto the lunar surface to become the 2nd man on the moon. Not a joke folks 🙈
People superglue their hands to things as a direct result of what they see on the BBC. The promoters of “Climate Emergency” and “Only 12 years left to save the planet” etc are misinforming, brainwashing and manipulating the easily led. —-SKY do the same ofcourse but we are not forced to pay for Kay Burley and the “Climate Show”.
Attenborough has lost all credibility with most sensible people due to his distorted claims about wildlife and climate that can easily be proven to be untrue. If only he could research more and spread lies less, he could return to being a worthwhile contributor to climate science, but as it is, as soon as I see his name involved in a TV programme I won’t watch it. I really am getting very tired of his inaccurate scare stories. I think it’s time to put him “out to pasture”. It’s a shame as there was a time many years ago that his output had value, but not any more.
I assumed that in the past when Attenborough was filming on location that he was in control of what was said because he studied zoology and he kept out of politics. I assume now that he is just a mouthpiece for those producing the programmes. We need to know the real actors behind this propaganda.
Some extremist claims are rarely fact-checked by most of the media if you have ‘woke progressive’ ideology.