Corroborated by three different ways of analysing U.K. population statistics (the official version, five-year and 10-year pre-Covid fatality percentage rates by month), two conclusions and one potentially relevant observation, become apparent.
First, the official Covid death toll (230,000) was overestimated by more than a factor of 2x (adjusted for dry tinder effects, the true figure was likely 95-105,000).
Second, Brits have continued to die at the same accelerated rate as during the first two years of Covid. There have been roughly 80,000 cumulative excess deaths in the 18 months since end-February 2022 (‘excess’ depends on the baseline used), but only 15,000 or so can be realistically attributed to Covid, leaving some 65,000 unexplained excess deaths (~7% of total annual fatalities).
The observation is that February 2022 was the date by when virtually the whole U.K. population had already been vaccinated, not once but twice (119 million vaccinations in a population of 67 million).
If multiple (> 2) vaccines have been suppressing, instead of enhancing, the natural T-cell immunity response, as some doctors are now arguing, it is a matter of utmost concern that there have now been 32 million additional ‘booster’ shots administered in the U.K. since this unknown killer first became apparent in the data.
New unknown killer
Former Blackrock executive Ed Dowd has highlighted that cardiovascular deaths in the 15-44 age group in England and Wales in 2021 and 2022 were not only on a steeply rising trend, but that the +40% jump (from eight per 100,000 in 2019 to 11 per 100,00 in 2022) is statistically alarming, to say the least. Yet the U.K. Office of National Statistics (ONS) points out that the U.K. age-standardised mortality rate in July 2023 was below the July five-year average (although the ONS does exclude 2020, 60% of Covid deaths occurred after that date). For the first time since June 2021, the leading cause of death was ischaemic heart disease (as opposed to dementia). However, the rate was 12% lower than the five-year average. So, does the U.K. have a mortality problem here or not?
Data inadequacy
The biggest issue we have is that the data are shockingly inadequate. Following Covid, the five-year averages have become abnormally volatile, even with the 2020 data excluded. After a material spike in mortality due to the pandemic, you would naturally expect deaths to be lower than trend, potentially disguising the sorts of new developments that Dowd claims to have identified. Covid era data was clearly unfit for purpose (unless that purpose was to deceive, discombobulate and control).
Cases & tests
For example, there was no adjustment or acknowledgement that ‘cases’ were not the same as infections (diagnoses) and were anyway clearly a function of the number of tests, which ranged from less than 10,000 per day at the height of the first wave, to 340,000 per day at the peak of Wave Two in January 2021, all the way up to 540,000 per day over Christmas 2022, before having now fallen back below 10,000 per day again since March 2023.
Hospitalisations
Hospitalisations are no better, because the data doesn’t measure patients hospitalised with suspected Covid, but rather patients within a week of hospitalisation that had, either before or since, contracted Covid. Since the main hot beds (excuse the pun) of Covid infection were the hospitals themselves (which also managed to have 10 times the case fatality rate of the wider community), hospitalisation data alone tell us very little.
The official death toll
Meanwhile, deaths data were muddied by being defined as ‘with’ Covid, rather than ‘from’ Covid which, combined with being a notifiable disease running rife through the hospitals, all but guaranteed it nightly headlines on the BBC. To date, the Covid death toll has officially reached 230,000, or 0.34% of the U.K. population. Prior to Covid, the annual U.K. death toll averaged about 0.898% of the population a year, equivalent to ~600,000 of the current population. Yet, since 2020, that annual death rate has risen +9.5% to 0.983%, but how much of this increase is due to Covid?
Disquiet about the reliability of data on tests, ‘cases’ and hospitalisations aside, according to the U.K. Government data on deaths, which are (only a little) harder to fudge, there were two main waves of Covid (see Chart One below), prior to winter 2021, when the disease went endemic. Officially at least, Wave One, which ran from March-June 2020, claimed 56,000 lives. Shockingly, Wave Two (October 2020 to March 2021), which might have been two separate waves overlapping with each other, took closer to 94,000 souls in just six months. Then, after ~150,000 deaths in Year One, the death toll eased back substantially in Year Two (July 2021-June 2022) to ~50,000.
Chart One: Daily U.K. deaths with COVID-19 on the certificate
U.K. Government figures show that since June 2022 (pandemic Year Three) the U.K. annual mortality rate has moderated still further to ~25,000 (see Chart Two below). At least, that is the official story. A terrible pandemic, gradually brought to heel by a fast-acting, determined and brave bureaucracy, albeit one that denied personal freedoms whilst brooking no dissension, nor even dialogue. However, whether you wholly subscribe to this narrative or not, it seems certain a more robust calculation of excess mortality might better illuminate what sometimes comes across as an almost intentionally opaque picture.
Chart Two: U.K. cumulative Covid deaths now equal 230,115 (September 28th, 2023)
Excess deaths
The issue is starkly revealed when we compare Covid deaths, which should all be ‘excess’, with the actual excess deaths data, which should all be Covid. However, after 2020 (Year One), this is not the case at all. Initially (Year Two; March 2021 to February 2022 inclusive), deaths officially tagged as ‘Covid’ by the authorities (see black line on Chart Three below), far outstripped excess deaths. 2021 was the year of ‘Project Fear’ when, although the threat was diminishing, the excessive use of testing, and the very low polymerase chain reaction (PCR) threshold required to determine a positive case, led to a massive overestimation of both the disease’s prevalence and its associated fatalities. From having been in line with each other as late as January 2021, by the end of pandemic Year Two (end-February 2022), cumulative Covid deaths (187,557) were officially ~41,000 higher than cumulative excess deaths (146,886). Furthermore, almost all this overstatement had occurred during Year Two.
Chart Three: Estimated U.K. excess deaths during COVID-19
A new threat
Covid deaths coming in materially above excess deaths in Year Two merely meant we were overestimating Covid fatalities. However, something much more worrying has been taking place since end-Year Two of the pandemic. Instead of excess deaths coming in below Covid deaths, as we would expect, the opposite has been happening; and at considerable scale. Since April 18th 2022 to end-August 2023, there have officially been 34,350 Covid deaths in the U.K. (official Covid deaths are ‘with’ not ‘from’ and have tended to be chronically overestimated by almost a factor of two since testing began in earnest after Year One). Yet officially, excess deaths are almost 100,000.
Something unidentified, but clearly not Covid, seems to have killed upwards of 65,000 Brits over the last 18 months; and at a monthly rate (~4,000) wholly in line with the severity of Covid itself.
A deeper dive
The above figures come from charts available from Our World in Data and demand closer investigation, especially since taking deviations from the rolling five-year average, as the ONS does, is not a good idea after a pandemic; whilst then arbitrarily ignoring 40% of that same pandemic is hardly the most robust strategy either. We can get a more detailed analysis by looking at monthly deaths in England and Wales for the five years pre-Covid (2015-19 inclusive), and dividing these by the estimated total population, to derive a monthly expected percentage death rate. This ranges from a low of 0.067% in August/September to a high of 0.0965% in January, when the elderly are at their most vulnerable to the cold weather, chronic lack of vitamin D and the stressor of annual flu. These monthly expected percentage mortality rates for England and Wales can then be scaled up and compared to the actual U.K. monthly death data from 2020 onwards to estimate excess deaths. This methodology merely confirms the story above, whilst painting a very different picture to the one espoused by the official narrative.
Pandemic Year One, Wave One
The first wave of Covid to hit the U.K., albeit mercifully brief, was shocking in its intensity (the official 34,000 U.K. excess deaths in April 2020 alone were three times higher than any month before or since, though excess deaths were over 48,000). Lasting barely two and a half months, from end-March 2020 to early June, Wave One officially claimed 57,000 lives. This tallies closely with the gross excess deaths number over the same period of 61,000. Sadly, a large number of these Wave One deaths were in the old-aged, hospitalised cohort, who were packed off back to the care homes to free up hospital beds which, ironically, were never needed. Many of those who then died in the care homes were not officially recognized as Covid deaths. Testing too had yet to be rolled out into the wider community, including care homes, so by end-June only six million (2.8%) out of an eventual 213 million tests had been done. Of these, 5%, or 285,000 cases, mainly hospital patients and staff, were positive, of which 21% died. By end-2021 in contrast, rampant testing, set to low positive PCR thresholds, was turning up 180,000 ‘cases’ a day, causing the case fatality rate (CFR) to plummet from 21% to below 0.08%, roughly the same as the flu (see Chart Three below).
Chart Three: U.K. COVID-19 case fatality rate (CFR, %)
Dry tinder
Nevertheless, in the run up to Wave One, there had been substantially fewer deaths (i.e., negative excess deaths) thanks to warmer winters and a benign couple of back-to-back flu seasons, particularly compared to the winters of 2014-15 and 2017-18. There is ample evidence of a significant U.K. ‘dry tinder’ effect built up over these prior two years (2018-20) during which, in the absence of bad flu outbreaks, there were ~21,000 fewer cumulative deaths than might otherwise have been expected. Adjusted for this ‘dry tinder’ effect, net Covid deaths in Wave One (i.e., those we can assume were due specifically to Covid rather than just extreme fragility) were much lower than the headline figure and marginally above 40,000: still awful, but nevertheless 30% less than the official Wave One Covid death figure of 57,000.
Year One, Wave Two/Three
Waves Two and Three, which started in September 2020, when Brits brought the Spanish variant back from their summer vacations before packing their kids back off to school to spread it amongst their friends, subsequently morphed into a secondary ‘Alpha’ winter wave originating from Kent which, between them, lasted until the end of February 2021. Owing to both the reportedly very high transmissibility and virulence of Alpha, Christmas 2020 was cancelled. However, during Wave Two testing topped 450,000 per day and, largely owing to the very low positive settings on the PCR machines, 3.8 million ‘cases’ were identified.
Whilst officially at least, this was the deadliest wave, with 95,000 people dying with Covid, because of so many positives, the ‘case’ fatality rate (CFR) dropped 10-fold to 2.5%. Yet this was also when Project Fear was gathering pace, so it comes as no surprise to learn that there were only 49,400 excess deaths during Wave Two/Three, similar to Wave One and only about half the official 95,000 estimate. This lower figure meant the implied CFR was now 1.3% (already a 16-fold better outcome than Wave One). Not that you’d have been alerted to these improved survival rates from watching the BBC News, of course.
Year Two
By pandemic Year Two (March 2021 to February 2022), Covid had become endemic and, instead of the prior big waves of infections and deaths, the official data show a steady trend of ~150 deaths a day, nevertheless sufficient to not only feed the insatiable appetite of the nightly BBC News, but to rack up a further 36,000 deaths, from 14.8 million ‘cases’, courtesy of 129 million tests (the CFR now being 0.24%, an 86-fold improvement on Wave One). Yet with Project Fear now in full swing and sceptical voices being cancelled, the somewhat inconvenient fact that excess deaths over this period barely totalled 11,000 (an implied CFR of 0.07%, or a 280-fold improvement on Wave One) seems to have escaped the attention of both the authorities and the mainstream media. Winter deaths (December 21st – February 22nd) were, in fact, 670 less than normal.
Year Three+
This was not all that evaded the authorities’ notice, however. Having over-estimated Covid deaths in Year Two by what appears to have been a factor of over 3x, an even bigger miscalculation, but in the opposite direction, seems to have been made with the most recent 18 months’ of data March 2022-August 2023. The Government’s official statistics show 42,150 cumulative deaths ‘with’ Covid, an average daily rate of 75 deaths, or about half the rate of Year Two. Given their tendency to exaggerate Covid mortality by a factor of 2x in 2020 rising to 3x in 2021, the true figure of deaths from Covid is probably below 15,000 and perhaps as low as 10,000. Compare that to a bad flu year pre-Covid, which could account for an additional 25,000 excess deaths.
Yet excess deaths in the eighteen months of Year Three+ were 78,575. If only 10-15,000 of these excess deaths can reasonably be attributed to Covid, then something else must have been responsible for killing 65,000-70,000 Brits over the last 18 months. This corroborates the 65,000+, non-Covid excess deaths figure we derived from the official statistics too. Yet on a topic this vital, it is important to apply more than just belt and braces.
Contrary to the practice of my namesake, Professor Neil Ferguson, it is necessary to consider the sensitivity of any model to its starting assumptions. The five-year period leading up to the outbreak of Covid, despite being the conventional baseline, was notable for not one but two bad flu seasons (2014-15 and 2017-18), which will have lifted the bar for ‘excess’ deaths. However, if we use the 10-year average monthly death data prior to Covid to smooth out this effect, we end up with higher numbers as expected, of course, but nevertheless the same clear message.
10-year average baseline
Wave One – Official death toll: 57,000. Excess deaths: 63,000, adjusted for dry tinder: 47,700.
Year One, Waves Two-Three – Official toll: 95,000. Excess deaths: 58,000 = a +64% overstatement.
Year Two – Official death toll: 35,700. Excess deaths: 19,400 = an +84% overstatement.
Year Three+ – Official death toll: 41,700. Excess deaths: 90,000 = a -54% understatement.
Given that even using the 10-year baseline, Covid deaths have been overstated by about a factor of +75% since 2020, Year Three deaths from, as opposed to with, Covid are unlikely to have been more than 25,000 at most (this is a higher nominal number because the hurdle for ‘excess’ is lower), implying once again that those excess deaths not explained by Covid have been in the region of 65,000, thus corroborating what we found using both the five-year average monthly death rates and the official HM Government statistics.
Conclusion
Therefore, while Covid fatalities may have been all but eradicated, there have nevertheless been 80,000-90,000 excess U.K. deaths in the eighteen months since February 2022 (to August 2023). If only 10,000-15,000 of them can reasonably be blamed on Covid, who or what is killing the remaining 65,000? No matter how you look at it, this new, unseen and unacknowledged threat is now killing ~4,000 Brits a month, roughly the same rate that Covid was killing during 2020-21. Yet, instead of broadcasting nightly death tolls and locking down the economy, along with any and all dissenting voices, this time there has been complete radio silence. Is this because the cause of death is inextricably tied up with taking medical advice from politicians, rather than medics? Worse, because this new killer is unlikely to be a new viral pathogen, it is also not likely to mutate into a more transmissible, but less virulent, variant over time. In short, until and unless identified and then restrained, this new killer could be here to stay.
James Ferguson is the Founding Partner of MacroStrategy, where this analysis was first published.
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Shut the bastards down!
Let’s go back to first principles. What is a company? A legal fiction that lends a slice of the state’s monopoly of legitimate violence to a group of individuals wishing to act collectively.
This has value in simplifying the alignment of incentives and mutualisation of risk to quickly attempt ambitious enterprises.
But is also has risks of creating tyrannical hierarchies with influence beyond their purpose. By changing company law to create ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ governments have exacerbated this risk. If companies have to do ‘social good’ they first have to decide what is socially good. That is a job for democracy not corporate hierarchies and self serving capital.
the answer is to get companies back in their lane. I would suggest changing company law to recognise companies as legal personalities only for the specific purpose for which they were formed. This would enable, for example, tax authorities to treat their revenues as personal income. That should give boards pause for thought.
‘A legal fiction that lends a slice of the state’s monopoly of legitimate violence to a group of individuals wishing to act collectively.’
Twaddle.
A company is a shortened form of The Members in Company, the members being a group who pool their capital and put it at risk to bring goods to market to serve consumer demands, profitably.
The key word is risk to their capital.
A problem arises when companies expand and have the bulk of their shows owned en bloc by large funds whose managers have little incentive to supervise and control the hired management, because there is no risk to their money, and the managers similarly perceive no risk to their money.
But over 99% of UK companies are SMEs who are in many cases owner managed who are influenced by risk to their capital.
Most large corporations do not survive. Eventually the are displaced by the lean, mean, hungry brigade of SMEs and entrepreneurs. Just a matter of time.
Companies only thrive if they have customers. So it is our hands.
Twaddle yourself.
Most large corporations do not survive. Eventually the are displaced by the lean, mean, hungry brigade of SMEs and entrepreneurs. Just a matter of time.
What planet are you living on? Large corporation handle potentially successful competitors they can’t otherwise cope with by buying them.
A flaw in the suggested draft amendment is the clause ‘unless it (ie the provider off financial services) is satisfied. . . said information would in itself constitute a criminal offence. . .’ that leaves the issue in the opinion of the provider of financial services rather than, say, the ‘reasonable man’ test.
I am afraid I am resolutely against the use of the law for such matters. The law has much more important things to do.
The simplest of all answers is to boycott paypal, which I have been for a number of years, for other reasons.
I tend to favour minimal state interference but leaving it to the public to boycott means you’re allowing the public to acquiesce in the oppression of a minority (lockdown sceptics) by communications platforms and financial services companies. Communications and financial services are essential utilities and it’s simply impossible to function effectively at an individual or organisation level without them. Neither can freedom of speech exist in such circumstances. I’m afraid making them behave as a public utility by force of law is the only way. It’s simply not realistic to think that alternatives will spring up and flourish as the barriers to entry are so high and global corporations dominate those markets and are captured by globalist “progressives”.
PayPal isn’t the only gal in town, nor is the twit-creature or the book of fæces, so you can only be oppressed by these clowns if you allow yourself to be.
When I was growing up, the general rule was once you found out who the bullies were, you stayed away from them – if you didn’t you got what you deserved. But that was in the day we were expected to learn to look after ourselves not rely on the State to wipe our noses and backsides.
I am weary of listening to people whinge and whine about Big Tech companies, but keep going back for more.
Agree insofar as knee jerk legislation usually makes things worse. But ‘Use of law’ could and should include removing bad law.
It can be tricky to avoid it’s use altogether, unless you end up boycotting a third party. E.g. I sometimes buy products from a local brewery that uses PayPal, and when ordering online, it (PayPal) encourages one to open an account, but when paying by other means, either a debit or credit card (which I do), I’m not sure whether that means that PP process the transactions or not. I would not want to shut off the firm altogether.
I know of no enterprise that can only be paid via PayPal. It plugged a gap in the market where money exchanges between private individuals or with small businesses were uneconomical or not possible using credit cards.
Now with on-line banking, virtual banks like Starling Bank, easy, free bank transfers, there is nothing unique to PayPal and an Internet search offers over a dozen alternatives to it.
Quite. Because ‘law’ breeds lawyers. And any company can find a way round ‘laws’ which are difficult to draft to accommodate current and future circumstances.
And regulation adds to a company’s cost and that cost ends up with the consumer.
Best plan, as you say, is stop using them. If enough do, then either they will get the message and reform, or it provides an opportunity for new market entrants to serve the disenchanted consumers.
Boycott PayPal. Simple, effective solution, by the people. No lawyers need apply.
The challenge, as ever, is to win hearts and minds to change convention.
Not at all simple nor effective as we are such a small minority. Sites like DS and organisations like FSU are part of the battle to win hearts and minds – if we cannot get our message across, we cannot win that battle.
Agree. In an ideal world it would be simply a battle for hearts and minds.
In the real world, however, the game is completely rigged. They have all the cards and all the aces. They have the finance, they control the media, they control the politicians, even though we like to think they don’t.
It’s a rout even before we start.
Using PayPal need not be part of the solution. And they clearly don’t want to be, so f*** ’em.
There are over a dozen alternatives.
I find it interesting that Nationwide have, in the last few days, sent a relative of mine details of changes to their T&Cs to take effect on 16th Jan 2023. A couple are of particular interest, under “Helping you stay safe” (how kind of them!)
1) We’re adding into the Terms the ability for us to refuse to make a payment if we think it’s a scam or it’s to a recipient that may be acting unlawfully.
2) We’re adding in new provisions to allow us to stop payments in and out of your account, or block access, for safety reasons.
Interesting eh? Must be in line with the online harms bill but it chimes rather too closely with the PayPal incident. Something for greater minds than mine to ponder.
My italics, btw.
The business of with whom I spend my money has sod all to do with banks.
I agree with you completely. It is why I have closed my PayPal account. I just wonder if these changes by NWide are determined by the Online Harms bill and is this just one step closer to Social Credits?
In theory, that’s correct. But this assumes that it’s actually you spending the money. Something which happened to me in the past was that I got a call from NatWest that someone was trying to withdraw a large sum from my bank account via a cash machine in Thailand. I have absolutely no idea how these someones got access to my bank account but I’m grateful to NatWest for noticing something odd was going on and talking to me about it before the payment was made.
Unlawfully = a criminal act is not the same as arbitrary rules about approved social behaviour as determined from time to time.
I think that’s motivated by something more mundane, namely, stop fraudulent payments, eg, to online scammers.
My choice would be to let PayPal do whatever they want in exchange for an ironclad guarantee from the state that cash will continue to be an accepted form of payment without limitation or restriction.
Isn’t the best way for people to stop using these shysters and for other enterprising people to start a business to serve this new cohort of consumers?
But ‘cash’ transactions can never be stopped. What is ‘cash’? It is a token – that has no intrinsic value – which another will accept in exchange for goods/service they supply because they know they can exchange it for goods and services from others.
‘Cash’ can be anything… shirt buttons if you like. Currently Government have a monopoly on money, which earns them sovereignty, an income they won’t want to give up.
In Africa in the absence of banking, non-local transaction were made using mobile phone credits. A buyer would buy call credits for the seller’s phone in exchange for goods.
It is why Governments are doing their best either to stifle or control crypto currency because it is in competition with their fiat money.
But even if Government were to withdraw all its cash from circulation, there is nothing to stop people accepting other tokens of exchange. It is after all how money started in the first place as a replacement for barter.
It depends what is meant by “intrinsic value”. If you’ve got a pot of cash, you’ll soon notice how it’s value goes down under rapid inflation. No doubt tokens are subject to inflation or vice versa as well. What they don’t like are transactions done with cash only, no receipt, no paperwork – i.e. VAT free etc. One of the well known reasons why they discourage cash.
One can conjecture that this term was inserted into the Paypal policy to enable punishing people for publically disagreeing with the global Corona orthodoxy. It’s a completely empty soap bubble which has absolutely no place there. Eg, all opposing parties in a democracy routinely accuse their opponents of providing false, inaccurate or misleading information
and it’s certainly not the business to a fincancial service company to settle political disputes in a democratic society by executive fiat. That’s an outrageous idea.
Maybe people at Paypal believe that the company is the secret world government of the new normal or something like this, but this is certainly not the case. Someone is seriously overstepping his mark here.
So many institutions have been taken over.
So called liberals are really socialists who want is to live in the dull tyranny of conformity.
Everything in life that is good is being killed.
A flushing toilet – the perfect logo for Oxford University Press
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-flushing-toilet-the-perfect-logo-for-oxford-university-press/
By
Frederick Edward
If the world hates you, remember that it’s nothing personal.
Yellow Boards By The Road
Thursday 29th September 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A30 London Rd &
B3020 Sunninghill Road
Windlesham GU20 6PJ
Friday 30th September 2022 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A322 Bagshot Rd,
by Bracknell Leisure Centre
Bracknell RG12 9SE
Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
A provider of financial services may not by reference to any contract term terminate or suspend the provision of services to a user on the basis of that user spreading false, inaccurate or misleading information, or similar, unless it is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the spreading of said information would in itself constitute a criminal offence in the laws of England and Wales.
Thing is, they could still refuse to deal with you, including closing your account, simply because they don’t like you or your views, and drawing on any number of concocted pretexts to justify their doing so.
Perhaps worse, many commentators BTL on here – including yours truly – back in those heady days of 2020-1 were very vocal in calling for people to refuse to wear masks, ignore the terms of the lockdown, get on the streets on demonstrations in flagrant breach of gathering numbers, and so on. Those posts could be viewed as promoting criminal activity – which under the terms of the vile laws of the time they indeed were – and thus justify the closing of the site, or at the very least the BTL comments on the site (which are and have been much of the life blood of the site).
Disappointing to read “…a hypothetical Muslim printer refusing to print a satirical magazine bearing an image of the prophet.” He may be Dr. McGrogan’s prophet but he’s not mine. Describing Mohammed simply as “the prophet” implicitly confers a status which is unwarranted, and encourages a mindset open to acceptance of blasphemy laws.