One of the stats most commonly latched on to by lockdown sceptics is the number of people who would normally be dying at this time of year in the absence of coronavirus because it seems to show there’s been no increase (or, rather, it did before the death toll began to peak). According to the ONS, deaths mentioning COVID-19, influenza or pneumonia in Week 13 of 2020 (March 20th – 27th) were 18.8% of all deaths, whereas the five year average puts deaths mentioning influenza or pneumonia at 19.6% of the total. Having said that, the total number of deaths in Week 13 this year in England and Wales was 11,141 compared to the five year average for Week 13 of 10,130 (ONS). (Lockdown began on March 23rd so the fact that deaths from COVID-19 weren’t higher can’t be attributed to that.)
Every year, about 600,000 people die in the UK and it remains to be seen whether more people will die this year than in a normal year and what effect, if any, the lockdown will have had. For instance, about 10% of people aged 80 and over die every year and while it’s true there’s a risk they’ll die if infected with coronavirus, they won’t be significantly less likely to die if they don’t catch it because they’re likely to die of something else. According to Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at Cambridge University: “Many people who die of COVID would have died anyway within a short period.” (Neil Ferguson told the FT at the beginning April he thought it was “plausible” that two-thirds of the people who died of the virus at that point would have died anyway later in the year.) The average age of the people who’ve died from coronavirus in the UK so far is 79.5 and a majority of them have underlying health conditions.
However, as the death toll in England and Wales has increased, this argument has become harder to make. According to the European Monitoring Excess Mortality group, which publishes weekly bulletins of the all-cause mortality levels in up to 24 European countries or regions of countries, the number of people dying in England was normal up until Week 11 of this year, but had climbed to “very high”, i.e. well above average, by Week 14. (Although still normal in the rUK.) And, of course, if it drops back down to normal the advocates of a prolonged lockdown will attribute that to the extreme social distancing measures the Government has imposed. Against that, the mortality rate was normal in Sweden in Week 14 in spite of Sweden not closing restaurants, bars or schools or banning social gatherings of less than 50 people. On April 12th, Sweden recorded just 17 new deaths from COVID-19, its lowest daily rise in a fortnight.
One complicating factor is that we don’t know how many people are dying of coronavirus, as opposed to with coronavirus. In the UK, if a patient with COVID-19 dies their death is automatically included in the NHS’s statistics. (The ONS’s record of deaths due to coronavirus includes those who’ve died outside hospital where the patient’s doctor suspects they were suffering from the virus, test or no test.) But what if COVID-19 in’t the cause of death? For instance, an 18-year-old in Coventry tested positive the day before he died and was widely reported as being the youngest victim at the time. But the hospital subsequently released a statement saying his death had been due to another “significant” health condition and wasn’t connected to the virus.
Dr John Lee, a retired professor of pathology and former NHS consultant pathologist, has written a piece for the Spectator pointing out that if someone dies of a respiratory infection in the UK, the specific cause of the infection isn’t normally recorded unless the illness is a ‘notifiable’ disease. Until coronavirus came along, the vast majority of respiratory deaths in the UK were recorded as due to bronchopneumonia, pneumonia, old age, etc. “We don’t really test for flu, or other seasonal infections,” he wrote. “If the patient has, say, cancer, motor neurone disease or another serious disease, this will be recorded as the cause of death, even if the final illness was a respiratory infection. This means UK certifications normally under-record deaths due to respiratory infections.”
Since March 5th the list of ‘notifiable’ diseases has been updated to include COVID-19 but not flu, so anyone now dying of a respiratory infection who’s tested positive is recorded as having died of coronavirus. But is that the real cause of death? It’s possible (although unlikely) that the UK is suffering from an above average number of deaths in April due to an unusually deadly bout of seasonal flu, not coronavirus. According to estimates produced by Public Health England, 28,330 people died from influenza in England in 2014/15 (although only 1,692 in 2018/19).
Another complicating factor is that the lockdown is likely to be suppressing other causes of death, such as road traffic accidents, workplace accidents, violent crime, etc – another reason the number of deaths may not be much above the five-year average since the lockdown was imposed. That is, deaths due to COVID-19 aren’t being added to an underlying total that’s in line with the five-year average, but to a total that’s lower than the five-year average due to the fact that we’re spending more time in our homes. The relevant counterfactual is a comparable lockdown absent coronavirus and nothing like that has ever happened.
International comparisons aren’t much help when it comes to determining the true number of COVID-19 deaths because different countries use different ways to collect data on coronavirus deaths and some countries are changing the way they record deaths from one week to the next. Australia, for instance, has changed its definition of a COVID-19 “case” – and therefore whether to list coronavirus as the cause of death – 12 times since January 23rd. All of this makes it hard to calculate how many lives have been saved by the lockdown.
Update: ONS Data for Week 14 (March 27th – April 3rd)
This data, showing a sharp increase in the number of deaths in Week 14, strongly suggests that COVID-19 is more deadly than seasonal flu. The five-year average for Week 14 is 10,305, whereas the number of deaths in England and Wales in Week 14 in 2020 was 16,387, and will be larger still in Week 15. Against this, if Professor Spiegelhalter is right, many of the people who died of COVID-10 in Week 14 would have died later in 2020 anyway from another cause. By the end of the year, when we have all the data, we may conclude that the effect of the virus will have been to squeeze deaths that would have otherwise have been spread out over the course of 2020 into a narrow window in March/April, without increasing the total.
Further Reading
‘How deadly is the coronavirus? It’s still far from clear‘ by Dr John Lee, The Spectator, March 28th 2020
‘Tracking the coronavirus: why does each country count deaths differently?’ by Elena G Stevillano, El Pais, March 30th 2020
‘Coronavirus: How to understand the death toll‘ by Nick Triggle, BBC News, 1st April 2020
‘Coronavirus: seven questions for public health post-mortem analysis‘, Niall McCrae and Roger Watson, Journal of Advance Nursing, April 6th 2020
‘Keeping the coronavirus death toll in perspective‘ by Heather Mac Donald, The Hill, April 17th 2020
‘Why you can’t trust the UK’s “daily” Covid19 updates‘, Off-Guardian, April 23rd 2020
‘Pennsylvania Forced To Remove Hundreds Of Deaths From Coronavirus Death Count After Coroners Raise Red Flags‘ by Amanda Prestigiacomo, Daily Wire, April 25th 2020
‘Coronavirus deaths: how does Britain compare with other countries?‘ by David Spiegelhalter, The Guardian, April 30th 2020
‘Is the lockdown killing people?’ by Hector Drummond, Critic, May 1st 2020
‘The virus that turned up late‘ by Alastair Hames, Hector Drummond, May 9th 2020
Discussion
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“Since March 5th [2020] the list of ‘notifiable’ diseases has been updated to include COVID-19 but not flu”
This doesn’t seem to be correct. The “List of notifiable diseases for immediate preliminary notification”, published 6 March 2020,
https://www.hpsc.ie/notifiablediseases/listofnotifiablediseases/
includes the Disease “Influenza of a new or re-emergent sub-type” ,
its Causative Pathogen being “Influenza A and B virus”, as seen here:
https://www.hpsc.ie/notifiablediseases/listofnotifiablediseases/Immediate%20preliminary%20notification%20to%20a%20MOH%2004032020.pdf
According to Dr. Andrew Kaufman nobody has died of COVID-19, adding “it’s a hoax.” Moreover, doctors are being forced to put COVID-19 as the cause of death even if it was a fatal car accident. You can educate yourself on this pLandemic if you log onto https://arlenejohnson.livejournal.com , because the elite are carrying out an agenda. They’re using the Hegelian Dialectic. Coronavirus is a perfect example of it.
Looking at this after a year, it appears that Covid did indeed compress deaths into a narrow window, since within3-4 months the death rate dropped well below average.
I would estimate that the most common (median) major effect of Covid was that an old person lost between 3-6 months of life. For younger people it was probably a ‘bad cold’.
Has it been considered that the excess deaths may actually be a result of the lockdown? Keep everyone in their houses and the infection spreads. No one out much for 6 months so their immune systems are weaker. No sunlight so no Vitamin D. Wearing masks and breathing CO2.
It will be interesting to learn how many “excess” deaths have occurred from drug overdoses, suicides and violence (murders and domestic assaults). Not to mention excess deaths from all non-covid causes. For example, if schools are/were the safest place children could be between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., we would expect to see more deaths if children were not in school. Deaths from accidents, car accidents, snake bites, being hit by cars after wondering into the road, deaths from violence from parents or care-givers, etc. If only the MSM would run prominent stories on this topic of inquiry.
You can bang on all you like about excess deaths being normal. Are you saying the admissions to intensive care were made up? Are doctors lying when they relate what has been happening to patients in their care. Your campaign is irresponsible deluded and immoral.
8000 deaths ÷ 20% in hospital ÷ 900 hospitals out of the 1250 in UK claimed covid deaths ÷ 10 months = 0.17 people per month, per 1 of the 900 hospitals died from covid19 being put as main cause of death
49,000 people in the 900 hospitals have “possibly died along with other causes” of covid19
Any excess deaths are due to the lockdowns and the fallout from the lockdowns, including suicide. Where TF are you getting the idea that covid-1984 is more dangerous than seasonal flu? It’s a freaking cold virus that’s 99.98% survivable. Influenza cases are down 98% this year. Is covid-1984 a miracle virus that kills the flu, or are flu cases being wrongly (and probably deliberately) ascribed to covid to fan the panic? I know which one my money’s on.
Excellent cite. I have posted a link on my website. Thank you.
Its clear there was a short lived peak of deaths from Covid 19 and lockdown in the UK was applied when that peak was already diminishing as it was in most other countries. The peak occurs in different areas as the virus spreads to them, but as immunity increases the peaks are progressively less severe. The UK government is using heavily biased data and wildly inaccurate computer modeling to spread lies and scare stories about the virus to justify their stupidity in removing basic freedoms. The idiots in devolved government in Wales are power crazy and just demonstrating when you allow such idiots to have power how they abuse it. The power of the virus is clearly waning as immunity builds, in common with all viruses of its type. The UK government have spent £9 billion on test and trace where the test tells us very little, because we have no equivalent influenza testing to compare it to (but I suspect would be very similar) and the tracing is not working, This is a waste of our money as the test is proven to be inaccurate anyway. Even the Covid death data can’t be trusted and for the way its… Read more »
The average time between death and the recording of death reduced as new procedures were introduced for death registration. This will increase the number of deaths in March/April, and for the year – will this be corrected by ONS? Is there an estimate of the numbers?
Interesting. I appreciate that it’s hard work to analyse the published figures! However, I’m a bit sceptical with the concept that death may have been reduced by spending more time in our homes. Private homes are not necessarily as safe as they appear; no shortage of unreported minor accidents, e.g. Not only that, it could be that certain ‘violent crimes’ have increased for certain groups.
The net effect of it all is that it’s wide open for politicians to make use of circular arguments to justify their actions, unfortunately.
They are now afraid that their vaccines won’t be taken. They know for a fact the pandemic could be coped with by normal NHS but they need the fear to sell the vaccines. Disgusting. We will be on lockdown if we don’t take the vaccine! That appears to be the case given the current handling of Covid.
go to the google search engine. Pick any three or four random digits e.g.352 or 1234-any number you like. Put it in the search engine and then add -new cases. Works every time. What a scam.
bRILLIANT. i SEE WHAT YOU MEAN. I shall send it to all the conformists.
If the numbers of cases is rising in Europe yet the number of hospital cases & deaths continues to go down, then we need to draw the obvious conclusions about the validity of the test or the strength of the ‘virus’.
Are our journalists idiots or liars why do they not draw the logical conclusions and continue to say this is a reason for concern? There is no reason for concern, none at all. Less hospital cases and fewer deaths is good news!
Covid19 deaths in hospitals have been inflated. Every excess death not attributed to Covid19 has to explained and can likely be attributed to the Lockdown Scandal. Every death moved from Covid to Lockdown leads closer to the conclusion that caronavirus is no more lethal than flu and lockdown kills.
On the 14th July 2020 Public Health England published the report, “Excess Mortality in England, week ending 03 July 20 20.” The report is described as an attempt to understand the impact of Covid-19 and covers a 15 week period from 20.03.20 to 03.07.20 presenting excess deaths by age, sex, region, ethnic group, level of deprivation, cause of death and place of death.
Table 8 details excess deaths in care homes, private homes, hospices, hospitals and other places. Hospitals are the only setting in which every one of the 14,299 excess death is attributed to Covid-19, moreover, Covid-19 accounts for another 16,033 deaths in hospitals before the estimated excess death figure is reached. If Covid-19 deaths are removed from the figures, the registered deaths in hospitals would be 25% lower than the expected five year average. There is nothing to suggest any such significant trend in the 15 week period prior… Read more »
The NHS sent infected people back to care homes and caused that spike in deaths while hospitals seem to have been empty throughout this time.
The daily figure of deaths bothers me. I believe that on any day the figure could be made up from mostly deaths that occurred days or even weeks ago. This makes it very difficult to get a handle on what is really happening. I really think the daily figure should be consistent and only show deaths which have actually occurred over the previous 24 hours. Any deaths from earlier should be added on to the day’s total for the day they happened. Otherwise we cannot possibly know what the real 7 day rolling average might be.
I am also uncomfortable with the term ‘new cases’ which suggests people who have just become ill but really seems just to mean new positive tests – not the same thing at all.
Also the death figures are not all from people who have died from Covid I believe. I heard of a woman whose father was knocked over by a truck and died later in hospital but his death was recorded as being from Covid because they did a test and it was positive.
The thing that angers me the most though is the way the NHS has shut down and will not… Read more »
My friend and I were discussing this and she made some very interesting comments- she works for the NHS, and as part of her job she has to verify deaths and fill in death certificates to indicate the cause of death. she says that it is GOVERNMENT POLICY to put cause of death down as COVID if the patient is tested positive for it, irrespective of any other major underlying causes of death.
I don’t know where is the appropriate place for this comment so I’ll do it here. Has anyone taken a close look at the Coronavirus Act 2020, especially the “sunset clause” under which the Act is supposed to disappear after two years and the review after 6 months? In fact a large part of the Act is intended to be permanent; indeed the whole of it could become so if the Government wishes. I did a study of the sunset clause and the 6-month review for The Freedom Association. If it’s of any interest to Lockdown Sceptics, I’ll supply a copy.
We need to campaign for an early repeal of the Coronavirus Act 2020 as well as an end to the lockdown.
Iam a nurse who trained in a university hospital. It is a well known and established fact that containment of contagious diseases is esential. This is well documented. Looking to Europe and Asia, the ravages of COVID 19 with its resultant death rate could be clearly seen for several weeks before it reached our island shores – we had warning enough. Yes, it was unprecedented in form, but all the more reason to act swiftly and conseratively…… but oh no, all ports of entry remained open and people from all over the world flooded in without check. In the very least at that early stage those entering the country should have been advised to self isolate or been quarantined in some way Then what did we do in our wisdom but discharge patients from NHS hospitals into nursing homes, compouding the pandemic ! So many have been put at risk through ineptitude and poor guidance. Now having allowed 40,000 people to die we are introducing quarantine. What a farce. I have always been patriotic, but I now feel ashamed that with all the expertise that could have been made available, over and above the scientific advice, that government has failed… Read more »
I was wondering is it only me who can see the madness in lockdown. I see the experts are still saying we should have gone into lockdown earlier when it’s obvious with each day that goes by the experiment as failed to save any lives at all. For example if the U.K. had followed Sweden’s model we would have suffered only 25000 deaths and not the 40000 plus. Now I know so called experts will say you can’t compare the U.K. with Sweden but the fact remains lockdown was designed to save lives and it’s done the complete opposite. I wouldn’t normally have different views to the government but since YouTube took down the interview of two doctors in America for having different views to the WHO. I’ve come to the conclusion main stream media are not interested in different views so will be watching and reading less of their propaganda in the future.
This could be way off the mark–a crude calculation and analysis I know. I just got curious about the excess deaths being reported in Guardian. So I looked up the Office for National Statistics. In England the excess deaths for April 2020 as compared to 2019 are 44030. The COVID deaths recorded for April are 24346–whether you agree with that is another matter. That leaves 19684 extra excess deaths in April. Is the lockdown working?
Yoram Lass, former director of Israel’s Health Ministry “Any reasonable expert – that is, anyone but Professor Ferguson who would have locked down everybody when we had swine flu – will tell you that lockdown cannot change the final number of infected people. It can only change the rate of infection.” https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/22/nothing-can-justify-this-destruction-of-peoples-lives/
Epidemiologist Professor Sunetra Gupta: “In almost every context we’ve seen the epidemic grow, turn around and die away — almost like clockwork. Different countries have had different lockdown policies, and yet what we’ve observed is almost a uniform pattern of behaviour which is highly consistent with the SIR model. To me that suggests that much of the driving force here was due to the build-up of immunity. I think that’s a more parsimonious explanation than one which requires in every country for lockdown (or various degrees of lockdown, including no lockdown) to have had the same effect” https://unherd.com/2020/05/oxford-doubles-down-sunetra-gupta-interview/
Prof Martin Kulldorff, medicine professor at Harvard Medical School:
“Because of its virulence, wide spread and the many asymptomatic cases it causes, Covid-19 cannot be contained in the long run, and so all countries will eventually reach herd immunity…
If exposed to Covid-19, people aged in… Read more »
During the epidemic, it is impossible to report the rate of excess deaths attributable to C19. This is because a lot of deaths that would have happened anyway have been accelerated by C19. We may well see a reduction in excess deaths for the second half of the year because some of the people who would have died have already died. If anyone talks about excess deaths but does not take this into account they are committing the sin of what I call “nowcasting”, using an incomplete data set available now to make a forecast, rather than thinking about how the epidemic will play out and doing a proper ‘fore-cast’
BMJ article (highlighted by Toby) ” “Staggering number” of extra deaths in community is not explained by covid-19…
Only a third of the excess deaths seen in the community in England and Wales can be explained by covid-19, new data have shown.” https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1931
The UK now apparently has more Covid-19 deaths than Italy.
Italian ex-secretary of state, Vittorio Sgarbi: “According to the National Institute of Health, 96.3% did not die of coronavirus, but of other pathologies, which means that only 925 have died from the virus and 24,075 have died of other things… Don’t lie! Tell the truth!.. The 25,000 dead, as Professor Bassetti said, died of heart attacks, cancer and other… Let’s not use them to humiliate Italy. Let’s not use them to give citizens false news.” https://z3news.com/w/italy-hoax-leader-screams-stop-lying-true-numbers/
As our American friends say: “Go figure!”
Have read parts of your comments and Telegraph article today; couldn’t agree more… let everyone loose and let them make their own minds up like adults;
The day the lockdown was announced I went to my pub for a few last beers; the local retired head of practice GP was their and confirmed that most who died would have died within a year; Shame they died earlier but get Covid in perspective Boris.
I’m 70 by the way so supposedly most at risk ; I’ll take my chances.. at the peak the NHS ONLY had 4 deaths a day on average per hospital so accepting a few in London far from over wealmed. .. and that’s without the Nightingales
Three more weeks data can be added to that graph now. Starting to look alpine.
Tomorrow should show us past the peak. But it makes the previous arguments look pretty facile. There is, however a nice relationship between COVID19 deaths and all cause excess deaths. One can also predict the eventual excess as the first wave of the epidemic wanes.
Great article and great site. I also wrote about related issues a few weeks ago for UKAJI:
https://ukaji.org/2020/04/28/the-emperor-has-no-clothes-a-sober-analysis-of-the-government-response-to-covid-19/
I appreciate that it’s hard to assess risk early on. But we know enough now. This ill-conceived and devastating policy must stop.