Annually about 1,500 people are killed on Britain’s roads. Just imagine if that figure increased by 5,000, there’d be the most awful fuss! Yet, it’s likely that across England heart failure deaths could be 5,000 higher in 2024 than in 2020 and still no ‘excess’ deaths would be recorded. How could this be? It’s all to do with inflation. Only this time it’s the level of ‘expected’ deaths that’s being inflated away rather than the pound in your pocket.
Already, in 2023, the expected level of heart failure deaths is 7% higher than it was in 2020. This means that we could see 3,000 more people die from heart failure in 2023 than in 2020 without registering any ‘excess’ heart failure deaths. In 2024 an increase of 5,000 heart attack deaths over the 2020 figure would also be reported as no ‘excess’ deaths.
‘Expected’ deaths are calculated by averaging deaths in prior years. The average will increase as data from prior years are replaced with data from recent years. As heart failure deaths in 2021 and 2022 have been so high the ‘expected’ rate of death goes up accordingly. Heart failure deaths in 2023 look set to continue this trend.
The latest data release from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities incorporates six new weeks of data in 2023, from week ending March 24th 2023 to week ending April 28th 2023. This can be directly compared to the six weeks in 2020 at the start of the pandemic, from week ending the March 27th 2020 to week ending May 1st 2020.
During this six-week period in 2020 it was expected that 7,142 people would die from heart failure. This ‘expected’ death rate from heart failure was calculated using heart failure deaths from 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. By contrast, in 2023 it was expected that there would be 7,619 deaths from heart failure in the corresponding six-week period. That’s a 7% increase. So, when we look at excess heart failure deaths in 2023 they appear to be far lower than they would be if we had compared them to the 2020 base level.
In 2024, we’ll have lost 2015, 2016 and 2017 from the average and gained 2021, 2022 and 2023. The average will have increased to something like 7,856, a 10% increase on the 2020 figure.
At this juncture it’s worth just checking whether all-cause deaths and other causes of death, such as cancer, have increased at the same rate as heart failure. You may not surprised to learn that they haven’t. Whilst the level of expected all-cause deaths and cancer have increased by about 3%, the expected rate of heart failure has increased more than twice as fast to almost 7%. What’s so special about heart failure?
Having looked at the ‘expected’ numbers, what about the actual number of deaths?
In the six-week period of weeks 12-17 in 2023 there were 8,804 heart failure deaths. If we compare this to the expected level in weeks 12-17 in 2020 of 7,142 we can see that this amounts to a 23% increase. Of course, the reported ‘excess’ heart failure death rate isn’t reported as being 23% but rather 16% (still a big increase) because the ‘expected’ rate of heart failure deaths has been inflated over the past three years.
The next question to ask is, is an increase of 23% significant? Well, the increase in all-cause deaths in 2020 over the ‘expected’ level of deaths, bearing in mind that this was the year of a ‘once in a century’ pandemic, was about 14%. So, yes, I think a 23% increase is really something that should be looked at. A lot more people are dying from heart failure than was previously the case.
Following previous articles in the Daily Sceptic I’ve been criticised below-the-line for suggesting that the vaccine delivered some societal benefits. Specifically, I contend that they provided a narrative that allowed society to reopen. I stand by that view. In the absence of the vaccines I don’t believe that society would have reopened up as quickly as it did. That said, the only reason it was shut down in the first place was due to the panicked decisions of Government. I’m not a natural anti-vaxxer, I’m just anti-vaccines that don’t work and that people are coerced or tricked into taking.
To date, my objection to the vaccine rollout has been a libertarian one. I think the authorities overplayed their hand scaring people and coercing people who were never at any risk from Covid into getting jabbed with an under-tested treatment. Freedoms were trashed, informed consent was ignored and the door was opened for future Governments to steamroller individual rights. However, this increase in heart failure deaths makes me think that the vaccines were more dangerous than I had thought.
While I’m increasingly persuaded of a very significant link between mRNA vaccines and heart failure, I still don’t see the evidence of increased levels of cancer deaths post-vaccine. Cancer can be a slow burn disease and maybe the jury’s still out, but to date, the data don’t seem to show increased cancer deaths.
In recent months I’ve read a number of articles about an upsurge in cancers (examples include a piece by Karol Sikora from November 2022 in UnHerd and two pieces by Angus Dalgleish that appeared in the Daily Sceptic in November 2022 and January 2023) though not always specifically linked to the vaccine. However, if we look at the excess mortality figures produced by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities we don’t see these concerns being translated into excess deaths. So far, in 2023 cancer deaths are lower than the expected figure.
Cancer deaths appear to be a very different case to deaths from heart failure. Heart failure deaths have consistently been above the expected level since March 2020, as can be seen in Fig 2.
What’s perhaps more illuminating is if we compare the rate of excess cancer deaths to excess heart failure deaths since March 2020. At the end of April 2023 the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities reports 26,580 excess deaths (14% above the inflated ‘expected’ rate of deaths) from heart failure compared to 8,304 (1.7%) excess cancer deaths. Interestingly, the acceleration of heart failure deaths really took off after the vaccine rollout started.
In Fig 3 I have drawn a red line at week ending March 5th 2021, by which time over 90% of the over-70s had been vaccinated. Since then, while there have been 929 excess cancer deaths there have been 17,693 excess deaths from heart failure. That means, since March 2021 excess deaths from heart failure are 19 times higher than excess deaths from cancer.
One might almost think that when Andrew Bridgen, Dr. Peter McCullough or Dr. Aseem Malhotra say that perhaps someone should look into excess heart failure deaths, they have a point.
It’s hard to know what to make of all this. The key takeaways seem to be:
- Deaths from heart failure in a six-week period in 2023 were 23% higher than the expected level for the comparable six-week period in 2020.
- The ‘expected’ number of excess deaths from heart failure is almost 7% higher in 2023 than in 2020. The level in 2024 is likely to be 10% higher than in 2020. Why, when cancer deaths have not similarly increased?
- Excess deaths from heart failure have increased significantly in comparison to the expected level of deaths; this is particularly true since the vaccine rollout.
- If cancer diagnoses are increasing this increase hasn’t shown up in the mortality figures yet.
- Over the last couple of weeks excess deaths in England have been over 18% higher than the expected level (see ONS data) in spite of the expected level of deaths being inflated by inclusion of deaths in 2021 and 2022 into the ‘expected’ death figure.
Surely, the time is long past when someone should be explaining what’s going on.
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.
Thanks. A sensible perspective.
I agree with this and that is why I have sometimes asked something like, “Where do your family roots originate from?” Would be interested if Amber would also find that annoying.
Yes. There are two sets of rules: one for Blacks the other, everyone else.
Totally agree. Hope she responds. I absolutely agree with her that it’s a Trojan Horse.
If we accept (which I don’t necessarily) that what Susan Hussey did was insensitive or ‘irritating’ or inappropriate or even ‘racist’ – very mildly racist at worst – the main point, in my opinion (similar to the opinion expressed in this article), is that what was done to Susan Hussey in retaliation was far far worse than what Susan Hussey may have done wrong. It was cruel. If Susan Hussey did anything wrong, it was relatively slight, and it should have been dealt with privately, in a gentle and sensitive educational way, not a public humiliation.
We need to have more tolerance, and should not expect an 83-year-old (grieving) woman to be perfect (nor anyone) especially in regard to an issue which was very different throughout the lives of her generation who may not have kept up with the latest guidance as to what may or may not be appropriate.
The Woke religion does not appear to have any version of “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. One misstep and you’re cancelled and/or humiliated. Walk on eggshells. Don’t risk humour or curiosity. Beware of being friendly towards strangers, especially any in the special Woke categories. Maybe better to avoid any social interaction whatsoever with anyone who could be offended, in case of a misstep, and that way you won’t get into any trouble such as being branded a ‘racist’ and possibly cancelled and/or publicly humiliated. Don’t risk it. Stick to your own, the people you know aren’t looking to be offended. This is how wokeness and cancel culture are shaping our society.
I can’t see why asking where you are from is considered racist at all unless you’re one of the permanently offended.
Perhaps we should be asking ‘Marlene’ about her views on Blackface, as she’s quite clearly mis-appropriating colour to make a statement.
I have to say I find this sensitive in the extreme. So if I’m white and living in, let’s say, Somalia, should I be offended by the question? What about if I’m second generation? Third? Or would I still be a white person living in a predominantly black society and expect some curiosity? This raises many questions 1) at what point does multiculturalism grow so much that white is no longer classed as native British? 2) Are we already there, hence the offence? 3) If so, should we refrain from asking questions about a person’s roots? 4) If so, why? Why do some find curiosity about their roots so offensive? 5) Do we expect the same offence to be taken by white migrants? 6) Is it offensive to ask someone who you observe struggling with their English about their roots? 7) Where do we draw the line, or is it NEVER acceptable to be curious?
I think what we’re saying here is that observing and being curious about any difference (Vs the people deemed to be indigenous) is offensive. Why? Isn’t human curiousity part of the basic building blocks of, well, being human? Should we have to tiptoe around everything that may or may not be offensive? Isn’t that a large part of how we’ve got into this sorry state. Maybe others need to be less sensitive? One more thing: why is it that many of the people that get offended by this question are the same people who are most appalled by everything that is British?
1) at what point does multiculturalism grow so much that white is no longer classed as native British?
Try Birmingham or Leicester
In my business travels I went to South Africa, white South Africans – ancestors there for centuries, would tell me that when abroad and people asked what their nationality was, when they answered African they were told, you can’t be you are white. And sometimes people would be quite argumentative.
I struggle to see that if Lady Hussey had asked “what is your heritage?” offence could have been taken. Surely if you’re dressed in some form of national costume you’re inviting such an enquiry. Further, if you’re wearing national costume you’re also proud of that heritage and would have been pleased to tell your story when invited to do so.
Not if you’re a racist, professional offense-taker
I’ve lived in Northern Ireland more than half my life but, having retained my English accent, still regularly get asked “Where are you from?”. Should I scream “racism” every time this happens or just behave like an adult.
I may have been one of the people who asked you! I live in Belfast, having grown up near Derry, and I’m inclined to ask anyone who doesn’t have a Belfast accent, “Where are you from?” That includes people from Tyrone, Fermanagh, Derry, North Antrim and South Down, as well as people from England, Canada, USA, Pakistan, India, etc, partly because I’m fascinated by accents, and partly because it’s a way of developing conversation: You may have some kind of links to the place you think the person may be originally from, and they therefore have links to that place too. Does that sound like ‘racism’?
If you’re interested in someone, you’re curious about them. I’m curious about people’s accents. Someone born and brought up in London, for example, may have a London accent but different from a typical London accent if their parents don’t have London accents, they may have traces of some other accent, which I would find interesting. Does that sound like racism?
I did once offend a woman with a foreign accent, not by asking “Where are you from?’, but by not asking “Where are you from?”, because instead I guessed where she was from, I guessed she was German, and she was very offended, because she was Polish! It was funny though, and she forgave me!
I used to try to guess origin from accent but was incapable of distinguishing Yorks from Lancs and kept winding up with a mini wars of the roses on my hands…
I’m from Liverpool and am often asked if I have Irish ancestry (which I don’t). It’s my opinion that Lady Hussey was set up. Yes, her line of questioning was a bit thick-eared, but nothing that a gentle word between 2 adults shouldn’t have been able to settle.
‘Surely it only takes a bit of perspective to understand that some people may find something offensive (or irritating at best) and others may not?’
Don’t call me Shirley.
So we are to be in a constant state of pre-emptive self-censorship .
Perhaps we should stop speaking or writing altogether and remain mute – and know our place beneath the lordship of the Offendetrons.
Is there some kind of portable RADAR equipment one can use, an app for the phone maybe, that can alert one to the tender disposition of the wilting weeds and delicate flowers, of whom so many everywhere, we might engage in conversation and who might be terminally offended by some banal conversational piece?
People who ‘find something offensive’ usually can find offence in a handful of dirt – it is their problem, not ours, and it’s up to them to deal with it or get lost.
I’m offended that all of these people have been granted British citizenship in the first place, going back to Citizens of the UK and Colonies in 1948.
I’m especially offended that these people come to our country and expect to become our permanent dependents. A UCL study showed that between 1995 and 2011 the fiscal cost of migrants in the UK was at least £115 billion and possibly as much as £160 billion. How much do you think it’s been since the 40s up to now? Half a trillion? A trillion?
But regardless of whether these people ever manage to recover this insurmountable debt, I’m most offended that a stake in my nation, my birthright, has been granted to people that haven’t provided anything in kind for it. According to the latest census, more than a 25% stake in our nation has been given away.
As far as I’m concerned, unless you’re born into an English family or have married into one and are doing everything you can to raise an English family and live up to the privilege that’s been granted to you, this isn’t your country.
If you think that’s too harsh, maybe take a look at our neighbour to the South. In France, they are close to a civil war because the people they’ve imported hate them and want to take over. They are quite clear that they want France to be their country. It’s happened in many countries across the world. Do we want England to be the next Lebanon?
But instead we’re fussing over whether these people are offended when they’re asked where they’re from and taking the line I have above will probably get me sent to a Diversity Camp or excluded from polite society. This country is all but finished.
Add to that, they expect reparations to be paid the the country they or their parents chose to leave.
An absolutely sound post.
It seems mvery many people with other than white skin and non-English sounding names are more than happy to tell us they come from developping countries or they are descended from slaves (usually without proof), so why are they suffenly upset to be asked about their origins.
I am asked if I was norn in the town where I live, or in London or whatever, but I was not and I a happy to tell them I was from Cambridgeshire. Depending on the circumstances I moight get teased as if I had a broad Norfolk accent. Do I mind, of course not.
I was once thought to be Dutch when travelling in continental Europe. A problem to me? No!
I have been surprised that the woman (does she so identify, I have no way of knowing) has not been criticised for cultural appropriation by adopting a name other than the one she started life with and one from a part of the world her known ancestors did not come from.
I learned to speak German in Heilbronn & have a Heilbronn accent when I speak German. I was accused of being a stupid German woman when I didn’t understand what had been said in rapid German spoken with a North German accent. When I told the chap I was English & asked him to repeat what he’d said slower he was mortified! I took it as a huge compliment. Nothing worse to my ear than speaking a language with a strong English accent!
Cultural appropriation, like racism in general, is of course something only white people can be guilty of, just as only men can be sexist, etc.
If somebody asks where are you from, I take this to mean my place of birth or where I grew up. Usually this follows from hearing my regional accent. I’ve never considered before that it might be perceived as racist to ask.
As a kid with a ‘funny’ surname, I was often asked where I was from (and, occasionally, told to go back ‘there’, much to my bewilderment). Having acquired a bog standard surname but with a relatively distinct regional accent, and subsequently living and working in various parts of the country, as an adult I’ve been asked many times where I am from. It can even get down to the microscopic level – which village/street are you from. Depending who I’m with I’ll even initiate the conversation with ‘as you can tell by my accent, I’m not from around here…’ And, having one of those names which could be described as androgynous, when online with people who don’t know me I’m almost always assumed to be the gender I’m not (and yes, I only recognise 2 biological genders). After several decades of this my surmise is that, as humans, we are designed to spot difference and seek confirmation of it (do I eat it or does it eat me?). BUT, and it’s a very big but, the value judgements we subsequently apply to that awareness of difference and our acceptance/tolerance of it have a multitude of influences (class, creed, gender, age, race, culture, politics, media, etc. etc.) some good, some bad – and therein lies the problem. Who decides? Who do we allow to decide on our behalf? The fact that ‘difference’ is being so massively hyped up and weaponised beyond all reasoning these days begs the question as to what the ulterior motives behind it all are, and who ultimately benefits. Clearly not the archetypal ‘man on the Clapham omnibus’.
I think the important thing here is to take something into account the diversity trainers want to eradicate: The attitude of the speaker. In English smalltalk, the question Where are you from? is one of the polite standard phrases, just like How are you? I find it personally annoying because – me being German – to me, it comes across as some stranger cross-questioning me about stuff which really isn’t his business. But I can tell the difference between someone trying to make polite smalltalk and the unholy triology of (increasingly aggressive) of Where are you from? I mean, where are you really from? Do you work? some English people reserve for foreigners, especially foreigners suspected to be eastern Europeans (ie, born somewhere east of the eastern border of France).
If the supposedly English woman offended by this in the given context can’t, then maybe, she’s not really as English as she likes to claim and could use some cultural training herself.
Er, what? Why wouldn’t it make sense to you? Do you have some difficulty with English comprehension? I’m from the UK, and if asked where I’m from I’d usually say I’m from London. How does that not make sense?
The UK allows people from every corner of the globe to come here. We pass laws so that they cannot be discriminated against. We provide interpreters to all who cannot speak English at 16 pounds an hour. We are reluctant to tackle crimes committed by people of certain cultures for fear of being classed as racist. — Race Card politics has been laying down roots for decades now. We are now at the stage where even an Orchestra playing Beethoven is attacked for playing the music of “dead white people”.——Having swept through the education system, wokery and diversity now threatens government and corporations. Notice how you will rarely see a TV advert with 4 white people in it. Corporations run away with their tails between their legs in fear of the word racism, so they overcompensate by having way more black people in their ads than is representative of the population. They do all this under the banner of “Diversity”.. But “Diversity” really only means one thing. ——Less white people.—-Choosing whether to hire or promote people based on their race (or gender) only allows employers to create the appearance of diversity. There is no guarantee of diversity of skill or thought if they do this. They do it simply for appearances sake, because they do not want attacked for being racist. Race and gender metrics have become the dominant way of showing an organisations “diversity”, but only because they are easy to implement and easy to show. But justice does not come from buying a cheeseburger from a virtue signalling seller of burgers.
I would be mortified if I caused someone to lose their job because they had asked me where I was from? I do hope there is such a thing as Karma. And shame on the Royal Family for such cowardice.
Chances are that the king actually believes in this tripe despite one can hardly claim that he isn’t an old white man.
Having been in the rarefied atmosphere of the royal family for so many years Lady Hussey had obviously developed a sense of entitlement and deference to rank, leading to a total lack of emotional intelligence or even common sense. So when she was in a position as one of the ‘higher ups’ her first and biggest mistake was to touch the woman’s hair to look at her name badge. Such patronising behaviour deserved to be called out.
However, the offendable guest, dressed in a national costume that had nothing to do with her country of origin, was looking to create some nuisance that she could broadcast over social media to give credence to her self esteem.
Which of these faults is the greater?
I don’t agree with this article at all.
I lived abroad and was asked where I came from constantly. I’m now a Scot living in England and the question comes up all the time. It’s not even remotely offensive. People are usually proud of their heritage. Just look at all
the so called Irish / Italian / etc Americans. That god awful woman was looking for trouble and made sure she found it and then broadcast it to the woke world.
And where is the author from? Just asking. 🤣🤣🤣