Last winter’s energy crisis was much less bad than many had predicted – thanks in large part to unusually warm weather. Indeed, 2022-23 was Europe’s “joint-second warmest winter on record”, so demand for natural gas was much lower than it might have otherwise been.
However, it was still cold and people still had to heat their homes. Yet according to the Economist, high gas prices discouraged many Europeans from doing so, leading to 68,000 excess deaths across the continent. The magazine had actually predicted that this would happen and was proven correct – or so it claims.
How did its analysts get to the figure of 68,000? They begin by noting that there were 149,000 excess deaths between November 2022 and February 2023 – which is 8% higher than the five-year average from 2015-2019. About 60,000 were officially recorded as Covid deaths, so these were subtracted from the total.
They then looked to see whether energy prices were correlated with the non-Covid excess deaths rate across European countries, and found that they were – as shown in the chart below.
There’s a strong positive association between energy prices and non-Covid excess deaths per 100,000. Note that Britain had among the highest energy prices and among the highest non-Covid excess deaths.
The Economist ran a model controlling for various factors, and found that “a price rise of around €0.10 per kwh” was associated with “an increase in a country’s weekly mortality of around 2.2%”. Which implies that if energy prices had not risen, there would have been 68,000 fewer deaths in Europe.
Now, I have one quibble with their methodology: they appear to have used the absolute number of excess deaths per 100,000 as their outcome measure – which doesn’t really account for ageing and ‘rewards’ countries with lower birth rates. However, the biases aren’t huge, and it’s unlikely to have seriously affected their analysis. (The true figure might be 10-15% lower.)
Incidentally, they also estimate how many lives were saved by energy subsidies, and come up with a figure of 26,600. Given that subsidies were on the order of €600 billion, that works out to around €25 million per life saved – well-above standard estimates of the ‘value of a statistical life’.
The rise in energy prices last year was partly due to uncertainty sparked by Russia’s invasion, and was therefore probably inevitable. However, it was also due to Europe’s self-imposed sanctions on Russian energy, along with Russia’s decision to cut gas supplies (before the Nord Stream sabotage).
As the Spectator noted in a recent editorial, the sanctions on Russia have largely failed. They haven’t stopped Russia waging war let alone “turned the rouble to rubble”. And they’ve helped the Chinese, our supposed rivals, who’ve been able to buy energy at a discount.
On top of all that, it seems, they got elderly Europeans killed.
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Of course.
The revolving door shows how big pharma controls government, mandating vaxxes, dictate policy.
There ought to be a law against this, at least a 5 year cooling off between high office and private sector.
Part of the cooling off process might be to avoid buying products from companies that do that.
How about we just shrink the bureaucracy? That way we don’t have to add more rules the already giant mountain of rules and regulations.
I’m going to go out on a limb here but my prediction is that if we didn’t have a Chief Medical Officer we would be absolutely fine. I’d go even further to suggest that we could get rid of most of the jobs in the Department of Health and Social Care and things wouldn’t not only not get worse, but they might even go better.
Doctors (who can act independently), nurses etc, yes, plenty of that.
Health bureaucrats. No thanks.
Things would definitely get better. The covid reaction, cheered on by the health industry, killed more people than it “saved”. Would our health suffer if we got rid of the WHO?
Our health will DEFINITELY suffer if we don’t get rid of the WHO.
It has already.
Agree 100%.. and I’m not so sure we need government either..
We don’t need more laws.
“Before granting any new power or prerogative to the state, first imagine that power wielded by the politician you hate most, because one day it will be.”
10 years would be better as after that length of time the value of the rat jumping the ship would be Net Zero
If only more people had seen through the whole covid vax scam instead of meekly rolling up their sleeves taking the toxic vax the whole hysteria driven scam would have collapsed. As for me, I suspected fraud from the very beginning and the minute Bill Gates knocked on the door of No 10 and his shill Boris Johnson was banging pots and pans the whole scam was flashing caution like a Belisha beacon.
Should be taking up roll as a prison cook or sawing post bags. Sharing a cell with his mates Vallance and Witty.
I thought the exact same thing! These three destroyed lives, why are the still out on the street?
sickening isn’t it?
Judy’s.
I meant of course Judas
No, it’s fantastic.
The one thing we’ve been absolutely able to rely upon is these peoples stupidity.
Now even the most pro Covid hysterics are going to be raising their eyebrows at this ill timed action,scratching their heads and maybe wondering if the ‘conspiracists’ may just have had a point all along?
It all works in our favour.
“The fact that Moderna snapped him up so quickly proves that the government appoints the Top Scientists in the Country to advise them! Our NHS is the envy of the world!”
Sadly the nhs is hardly the envy of anyone’s world.
sorry this is so disgusting. That man has profited on deaths and misery, he used his influence to ruin the country, to abuse children forced a lie and experimental injections on us, and now he goes to his true masters for his big pay off. The fact that he knows we know and he doesn’t care. he is literally rubbing our noses in sh1t.
What next I wonder Mitchie the monster and Farrsr are safely ensconced in the WHO so they can create more tyranny and despair. I just wait on Whitty and Valance although the latter has more than handsomely profited already, to show up in a Phsrma, the WEF. The UN
WHO or one of the Gates Rockerfella scams.
When if ever will justice be served on these serpents.
Apologies to snakes
They are all doing nicely for playing their part in the plandemic.
It’s not just unsafe covid jabs that are being being promoted. Rexulti, a new antipsychotic drug for agitation in Alzheimer’s has been shown to have little beneficial effect and yet it is being fast tracked for licensing by the FDA despite an increased risk of death of four fold in the control group over the placebo group.
“The FDA has set a dangerous precedent about the data it may require for future drug approvals for this vulnerable patient group.”
Alarm as FDA fast-tracks first antipsychotic drug for agitation in dementia
Do your own research before taking anything.
“Do your own research…”
For that reason I declined the recent offer of a Shingles vaccination (look at the NNT and the side effects, folks, as well as the cost to the taxpayer). Only this week I hear of a friend of a friend who developed chickenpox (which she thought she’d had in childhood) just a few days after vaccination. Not a pleasant infection to get in your seventies.
“Van-Tam was a member of the Vaccine Taskforce, which the Government said made decisions on “all vaccine supply contracts..”
The cynisim behind ‘No one is safe until everyone is safe’ is laid bare.
Never trust a word these cretins say again.
“re-opening the debate about Government officials transitioning to the private sector roles and the potential misuse of privileged information”
The debate was never closed. Actually, what debate? They are all in cahoots. Unholy cahoots.
I don’t think I want the state to be responsible for my health – or anyone else’s.
He’ll need the saline substitute or the ‘real’ thing will probably kill him.
Now wouldn’t *that* be a turn up for the books?
This short arse needs to be held to account for the months and months of utter lies and BS he spouted..
What a vile human being
Rewarded for lying to the British people; playing his part in wrecking the economy and ruining the lives of millions.
Why am I not surprised?
Poor diddums, obviously his gold-plated, taxpayer funded final salary pension wasn’t enough for him to get by in the standard he’s been used to.
As the reports of SADS, myocarditis, strokes and other serious adverse events and deaths continue to roll in and data analyst experts are censored by the government via the NHS post covid vaxx, one of the men who carried out the evil plot is catapulted to the top. Something is SERIOUSLY wrong.
The Road to the killing fields are paved with impunity & reward
Entirely predictable unfortunately. I hope his conscious is clear but it looks deeply troubling to me.
They may have snapped him up so quickly so they can keep their strangle hold on the truth. Which I mean, what really happened.
He is less likely to be a witness for the prosecution in the ‘fold’ under their employment and control.