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.
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‘…where was the consent procedure, where was the control group and where was the evaluation?’
And where was the cost/benefit analysis (central to any application of the ‘precautionary principle’) that only Jesse Norman, out of the entire cabinet, asked for?
Does this admission mean that that they won’t do it again? Since it’s a ‘failed’ experiment? In chemistry or physics, if an experiment fails, you don’t do it again. I think they’ll try. It’s just a matter of time waiting for the perfect moment. Like another pseudo health emergency. What gets me is that this ‘experiment’ was carried out throughout the world bar a few exceptions without much thought or any oversight about any of the possible consequences. It therefore follows that either our leaders were working to a plan or not very bright. I would say it’s both. The plan was to see if they could do it. And they succeeded in that and subsequently ruined lives, businesses, relationships, hopes and dreams. That was the plan, in my view, to set us on a course of destruction. Destroy society, cut the ties, break us on a wheel. Drakeford and his ilk, in fact the whole rotten lot of them, deserve nothing but jail and no parole.
Next time they want to ‘experiment’ on us, I suggest they show us how it’s done first and when they’re in their homes with their masks on, twitching at the net curtains, we’ll weld them in and feed them insect burgers down the chimney.
Absolutely bang on the money Aethelred.
Cheers HP!
People do repeat failed experiments, sometimes they give a different p value. That is why CERN, having been bitten in the past, uses a very low p value. There is a behaviour called p value hacking in which people try to reduce their p value so that they can get published, get their drug approved, etc.
Point taken, Zeb!
I think he just means that local lockdowns weren’t “enough”, and we should have been in an earlier, longer and tougher national lockdown instead. But the nasty old Tories wouldn’t let Wales have one!
I’m sure you are right
His handlers, if he has any, will not be happy with his choice of words, but I think the damage is limited. People will think the experiment was worth it. The implication is that the national “lockdowns” were not an experiment but were based on solid science. Interestingly the only “evidence” I’m aware of for “lockdowns” came from China and that one was local, but an actual lockdown, unlike ours which were a dog’s breakfast. Assuming that what we saw from China actually happened.
I think “covid” had experimental aspects but these were nothing to do with public health but rather to discover what control measures they could get away with. I think “covid” is best thought of as an exercise rather than an experiment.
Did Wales even have local lockdowns anyway? The main controversy I remember was the ridiculous two week “circuit breaker” Wales had in Autumn 2020 (I think, it’s all a blur), which had zero effect on anything much but was used to highlight how reckless the English were for not doing the same thing. He is not even admitting that circuit breakers were pointless, and if Wales didn’t even do local lockdowns anyway then all he is doing is further criticising English policies (I believe Leicester was the first to enjoy being locally locked down by Wancock, for months on end while its case rate stayed stubbornly high…).
That’s a lie. In reality it was a failed policy, and gross abuse of power. Within that, they lost the plot and led to establish organisations losing their reputation, with various follow on problems via that route. Some might say that Drakeford should spend time with his kid in the slammer to start with.
Malfeasance in a Public Office – an Offence under Common Law.
Those responsible should be charged.
Carries a maximum sentence of Life Imprisonment.
Just charge one of the pro lockdown brigade aka most of SAGE. They touted themselves as “experts”. They persuaded a too willing Government to implement lockdowns. They wheeled themselves into and were lauded by the MSM. They traduced anyone who disagreed with the “Science.”
So may I offer up the one and only Sir (Christ) John Edmunds as one who most certainly should face trial. Oh, and as an added incentive, never forget that he vociferously advocated on/in the MSM that schools should be closed to children until vaccinated.
It seems he has very little knowledge of immunology/vaccinology/mRNA therapies. Personally I’d have thought some knowledge thereof must be an essential prerequisite for any epidimiologist.
Apparently not.
Never forget that people like him are direcly responsible for a large part of the utter mess the western world is in.
Power without responsibility does not mix well.
SAGE needs to be made an example of.
By redefined as a Prohibited Organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000, perhaps.
Covidians were/are extremists!
“SAGE needs to be made an example of.”
I don’t disagree but it is the height of naivety to believe that the people nominally running this scam were actually in charge. Bozo and his bunch of murderous traitors were simply order takers for the likes of the WEF, UN, World Bank, IMF and the Blackrock gang. Put this lot in court and their defence will be “only taking orders m’lud.”
The same destructive actions occurred in Lockstep throughout the West. Thousands of establishment persons didn’t arrive at the same murderous enterprises at the same time without a high degree of coordination. Such a belief defaults to cock-up theory and what has happened since March 2020 is certainly not cock-up. Some conspiracy realists prefer to borrow Charlie Chuckles’ terminology and refer to it as the Great Reset.
I agree wholeheartedly but unfortunately there’s zero chance of the RPTB meeting justice on this earth.
But it is perfectly possible to charge the bag carriers in the UK but at the moment the justice system is still in clown world.
When it emerges, those in a Public Office should begin to worry….a lot.
In 1840 Dr Farr said that epidemics do not grow exponentially. In 1927 Kermack-McKendrick said the growth was logistic – their work was the basis for the computer models during Covid-19.
The Common Cold Unit said masks don’t work before they closed in the 1980s. The Cochrane Review said and continues to say they don’t work.
And that unit in Salisbury did a lot more good work. They actually invented the term “coronavirus” following electron microscopy studies, and realised that vaccination (using the older definition) was unlikely to be effective, given the number of various viruses, both a group of coronaviruses, and many more rhinoviruses, that have a habit of mutation as they develop. But as you say, it was obvious given the small physical size of the viruses that masks were a useless idea.
Thank you.
Short, sharp, brutal but not nearly brutal enough.
Thank you Professors Heneghan and Jefferson for all you have done and continue to do.
Hear hear.
My modelling, of last year, shows that flattening the curve leads to extended duration and reduced acquired immunity so that when you unlock you get another wave – unless you extinguish the virus or have an effective vaccination programme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4kWbYlopN4
Surely the paid advisers could have told Drakeford the same thing at the time?
“unless you extinguish the virus or have an effective vaccination programme.”
It is not possible to vaccinate away from a viral respiratory infection.
The evidence agrees with you, the modelling is neutral as it is only a SIR model so it has no knowledge of vaccination. If it did then you would have to guess at extra parameters and then it could be pushed one way or another.
Indeed and they knew that
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/vaccination-video-is-emotional-blackmail-and-dishonest-too/
Not exactly giving up are they? Still cynically using indoctrinated children to manipulate parents in to taking their youngsters for a dangerous jabbing. And when June Raine is in charge we know this is as crooked as F.
Despite all the deaths and miseries unleashed by the C1984 fake injections they are still pushing poisons.
“Lessons will be learned” is definitely NOT an excuse this time.
Rather cringeworthy than evil, although the intent behind it doubtlessly is. I’ve been vaccinated against polio and smallpox when I was a child. At that time, measles was considered a benign childhood disease children will invariably get sooner or later. Whooping cough was a bit more exotic but still nothing seriously out of the ordinary, such as scarlet fever (I got the latter, my brother the former).
Apparently, readily available vaccination products cause illnesses to become much more dangerous.
This is a plain lie. At the height of Corona madness, all of the measures were marketed as tried and trusted NPIs whose value had been proven in the real world and was obvious to everyone but conspiracy theorists. Drakford wasn’t experimenting when he prohibited the sale of non-essential goods in supermarkets in Wales, he claimed to be following the scientific consensus of the finest minds on the planet re: infection control when being confronted with an extremely dangerous disease.
Experts also advised that women should not be allowed access to sanitary products in shops! This idiocy alone showed the “experts” were clueless and no idea of unintended consequences.
Clueless idiots? I don’t think so. These are criminals who were making it up as they went along; all the time laughing up their sleeves at the ‘plebians’ and ‘useless eaters’ sucking up their maniacal evil agenda. They still are. It must be hilarious for them, watching the masses blindly foxtrotting to their delirious composition.
Mr. Drakeford why not just go the whole hog and admit that you and your silly collectivist government and every other central planning bunch of busy body’s are all “failed experiments”, and to show some contrition why not tear down all those daft 20mph signs.
We could perhaps experimentally hit Drakford with 20mph signs for some time, just to see if this will improve his health and well-being.
Anyone remember this?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54662795
Indeed. Bloody unbelievable then. Off the scale now.
Yes. Like it was yesterday! It’s long past time these criminals were made to face the consequences of their crimes.
On May 7th 2020 I wrote to my member of the Welsh Senedd and my Westminster MP saying that we needed to stop lockdowns etc immediately and gave a list of 10 reasons. I will NOT accept “in hindsight” excuses from these officials and so-called experts.
*10 reasons based on those put forward by Dr John Lee at the time.