In a recent interview that ‘went viral’, vaccine sceptic Ed Dowd claimed that the deaths of U.K. 0-14 year-olds were up by 22%. Fact checkers went into overdrive to rubbish the claim. Though rather than countering the data unearthed by Dowd, and which to the inconvenience of the fact checkers were factually correct, they tended to rely on dubious claims that vaccines had saved X million lives – according to models rather than real-world data. As usual, they didn’t engage with the actual data available.
I’m reluctant to do the fact checkers’ job for them but I thought you might appreciate understanding what truth there was in Dowd’s assertion. I then wanted to point out the danger of putting too much faith in individual analysts. We all need to be wary of people overstating their claims, whichever ‘side’ they are on.
The data I’m going to use come from the Office for Health Improvements and Disparities’ (OHID’s) wonderful online tool that it stopped updating back in December 2023 when, in its wisdom, it opted for a new way to calculate ‘expected deaths’, using a methodology so complex as to defy any mortal man from sorting the sheep from the goats. The OHID data only cover England.
The OHID data are less granular than those used by Dowd, but they show much the same thing, though for a wider age range covering the 0-24 age-cohort. What’s more, it’s easier to access.
Here are the charts published by the OHID. The top chart shows weekly excess all-cause deaths for 0-24 year-olds and the lower chart shows total weekly all-cause deaths for the same age group. The little orange bits are ‘Covid’ deaths. As a rule of thumb, about 100 0-24 year-olds die each week in England.
Looking at these two charts should you be alarmed or reassured? In both charts you can see deaths start to rise just after the start of the vaccine rollout period. Coincidence?
Firstly, let’s see if I can alarm you. In 2020 from the start of the first lockdown to the year end there were 3,497 deaths in the age group, that’s 416 (11%) fewer deaths than were expected. Let’s gloss over the fact that, despite a supposedly ‘once in a century’ pandemic, 2020 was the safest year ever to be a 0-24 year-old – though it wasn’t safe because young people were protected from Covid but because road accidents and murders, the big killers of young people, decreased. Conversely, from April 2023 to December 2023 there were 4,142 deaths, 645 (18%) more than in the same period in 2020 and 418 (11%) more deaths than were expected.
There you go. Ed Dowd was right, and not just for the 0-14 year-olds but for the expanded 0-24 year-olds too. Deaths among young people were 22% higher in 2023 than they had been in 2020.
Now, using exactly the same data let’s try and reassure you.
Let’s look at the 12 month periods starting from week 12 (week ending March 27th in 2020) for each year from 2020 to 2023. Over the full 196 week period there were 19,477 registered deaths of 0-24 year-olds. This was 574 more deaths than the 18,903 that we expected. The difference is 3%. So, over the entirety of this ‘once in a century’ pandemic only 3% more 0-24 year-olds died than we expected; surely a triumph for Government policy!
Let’s now add the missing years and look at the 12 month periods starting from week 12 for 2020, 2021 and 2022, and the 40 week period from week 12 for 2023.
In Figure 3 excess deaths as a percentage of expected deaths are shown by the red line. Rising from a low of –7% in 2020-21 it rises to +11% by the end of 2023. Likewise, the 3% overall excess deaths for the entire 196 week period is shown by the red column on the right-hand side of the chart.
Clearly, Covid (the dark blue boxes) didn’t much influence the deaths figure in any year, peaking at 2% of deaths in 2021. Bearing in mind that virtually all those deaths would have been ‘with’ not ‘of’ Covid, you can see how minimal Covid was for this age-cohort.
From trough to peak we can see that using these 12 months figures there was an 18% increase in deaths, but this is a distortion that overstates the situation because it compares trough to peak.
However, while Ed Dowd was overstating the trend in one direction (by using the abnormally low 2020 figure as a baseline), the ‘fact checkers’ and Government bodies were understating it in the other direction. An 11% increase is really quite dramatic and annually rising fatality rates in the 0-24 year-olds deserve a bit of investigation.
It’s beyond comical the way articles, such as this one in the Telegraph last week titled ‘Has the pandemic made us sicker?‘, mention an endless list of possible causes of excess deaths in countries around the world, but fail to mention the possible link to mRNA vaccines. The BTL commentators are rather less circumspect!
Now I come to my point about being wary of people overstating their case even when they’re on the ‘right’ side. Ed Dowd is right to flag up that something is up, something needs investigating, but he’s wrong to overplay the data. Are recent excess deaths down to SADS, heart failure, murders, road traffic accidents or some other cause? Someone in authority should be looking into this and coming up with plausible explanations. It’s the same with Naomi Wolf and many other Covid critics: they can often overstate their case, to the detriment of the cause.
However, for me, the argument decrying the Government’s vaccine coercion, lockdown and all aspects of its Covid policy doesn’t rely on efficacy or safety; the core issue is individual choice. My body, my choice, my freedoms, my decisions.
The vaccines could have been the safest and most efficacious ever produced, yet still a coercive policy to get us to take them was always wrong. Their ineffectiveness and lack of safety merely makes the argument more persuasive. It’s the same with the lockdowns, masks, social distancing, the right to travel. Their rightness or wrongness doesn’t depend on how effective they were; rather it comes down to personal liberties. My Government shouldn’t be able to lock me up in my own home any more than it should force me to take a medical treatment against my will.
This brings me onto those who belatedly adopted ‘vaccine-sceptical’ positions. Many of them never took principled positions against coercion to enforce vaccine policy. Rather, in the light of the evidence that the vaccines were neither safe nor effective they’ve decided they object to unsafe, ineffective vaccines being coercively administered. But they were perfectly happy when they thought the vaccines were ‘safe and effective’ for them to be forced upon you and me, and some of them have still not renounced that view. These people are not on my team.
In the same way, many people now object to lockdowns. However, the grounds for objection too often are not that it was wrong to restrict personal freedoms by law – they were perfectly happy to have those freedoms curtailed at the time – they only objected when it became apparent that the measures were ineffective or unnecessary. This is not a principled objection, merely a pragmatic one.
Why does this matter? It matters because when the next pandemic arises, or some other challenge that looks likely to be met by the Government restricting personal liberties, you need to know who you can trust. Those whose objections to such policies are dependent upon their effectiveness and safety can’t be relied upon to jump the right way when the crisis hits. As Groucho Marx said: “These are my principles, and if you don’t like them, I have others.”
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Woke is evil
He was arrested for defending a Christian Cllr’s right to object to the gender perverts and mentally ill deniers of chromosomes, dna and mitochondria. If the other Cllr had been a Mahometan or Hindu no arrest by the Pervert Gestapo. As in the DisUnited States, the Plod is simply a Gestapo for Gov’t special interests.
What are Cllr Lawal and Stevens doing in the Tory party if they believe in the principal of freedom of speech?
The worrying thing about this story is the extent to which it is now normalised. We have already had victories over precisely this, yet the police are persisting with the same approach. Suella Braverman has even addressed precisely this, yet the police are ignoring all she has said. These stories are multiplying despite crossing legal bounds and no one is held to account. And now, dare I say it, even the commenters annoy me (in the Telegraph not here – here is much better). When they express outrage now they just look to me like birds who, with the publication of the story, have been fed some bird feed and while they are pecking away the real culprits are moving on, setting the next domino in place ready to start the show and flip our world into totalitarianism.
The UK is increasingly a Christophobic country.
There is not one single case of the plod arresting a Mahometan for objecting to the mentally ill pervert cult.
Woke is evil
Sheesh! Welcome to clown world eh?
The decision makers in Plod-world should be made accountable for this nonsense.
Too many things to say about this disgraceful incident and not enough time, therefore I’ll leave it to the late, great George Carlin. He could be talking about any government in the laughably labelled ”free and democratic” West here. As long as governments overreach and employ goon squads to trample all over our liberties and keep us in check basic rights such as freedom of speech and democracy are just one big, fat illusion. A privilege to be given and taken away at their behest.
“Sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize the government does not give a f*** about them. Government doesn’t care about you or your children or your rights or your welfare or your safety. It simply doesn’t give a f*** about you. It’s interested in its own power, that’s the only thing, keeping it and expanding it wherever possible. Personally, when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true. I think either we have unlimited rights or we have no rights at all.
And rights aren’t rights if someone can take them away. They’re privileges. That’s all we’ve ever had in this country is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter and shorter. You see how it’s going?”
https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/1695813659883434338
Thanks for that Mogs. Very true.
When’s the kick back going to start…
Andrew Tate and Alex Jones get together and discuss the state of the world, propaganda, control and feminisation of men.
https://youtu.be/aAQ8pKYnsHM?si=Elw__oDPCDWq5XbS
A bit shouty but makes one second guess the relentless attacks. He’s awake.
Wokery in conjunction with the Liberal Progressive virus denies you the right to have an opinion on Equality, Diversity, Race, Gender or Climate. Whoever thought that in a supposedly free country that we would be denied an opinion? If you have an opinion that does not comply with the tenets of the 5 agenda’s I listed you are committing a crime of HATE. —–How totally absurd. I disagree so I am guilty? But this article shows another extension to that absurdity where someone who then neither agrees nor disagrees with another persons allegedly hateful view gets into a spot of bother for saying that person should be free to have his opinion. —–What a dreadful slippery slope where non Progressives will soon all be in the woke gulag.
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
Your distillation of the current state of play is absolutely spot on.
We now have Stasi ..Official .
Again totally disproportionate Police action .
The law needs changing ..
The people are sovereign. The government is there to serve.
Legally unenforceable manifestos presented at 4 or 5y intervals give governments no right to remove a millennium of rights.
The globalists don’t think so and are laughing at such a quaint assertion. And at the moment they are winning.
As a resident of Northamptonshire I’ll be dropping the Chief Constable a line on the line he has crossed.
I know his PA!
I cannot get my head around this, how is this even possible ?
So police really turned up to someones house and arrested them over a tweet and locked them up for 9 hours.
The police are not fit for purpose,
How many police officers did that tie up in a nice & easy job with no need to patrol streets, a smart middle class family to terrorise with ease and no nasty loudmouthed perps to nick? What’s not to like?
Quite. I hope he sues Northamptonshire Plod. Incidentally, during the Covid nonsense wasn’t it the head of Northamptonshire Plod who threatened to have his minions search people’s shopping for “non-essential” items?
Well it took 6 or 7 to arrest that poor autistic teenage lass who had the temerity to say one of them looked like her lesbian nana. Would they even send that many if some violent thug was kicking off in town on a Saturday night? It’s a chuffing joke. Let it never be said, should you ever have the misfortune to be burgled, that the police can’t be with you for 5 hours due to lack of resources.
Mogs, the plod will not attend household burglary cases.
Well it took 6 or 7 to arrest that poor autistic teenage lass who had the temerity to say one of them looked like her lesbian nana. Would they even send that many if some violent thug was kicking off in town on a Saturday night?
It depends. If bouncers call the police, they’ll usually act, as that’s one of their peer groups. Ordinary members of the public or even bar staff are usually told to get lost. They’re supposed to hire bouncers for protection. But that’s certainly not a racket. No, no, no, this cannot be!
To answer that you need to consider what is going on at a deeper level. Consider, there is a relationship between this and Donald Trump’s arrest. It might sound tenuous, but consider what is driving those two things and that is the level that answers your question. No of course it’s not a single coordinating entity – if there is one they haven’t directly asked for this, but it IS a confluence of interests and philosophies where the centralisation of greed and power is leading the world to a very dark place.
No manpower issues for Northants police, then; though looks like some of them have been ‘wasting police time’ and ‘impersonating a police officer’.
Stephen Mold
Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Northamptonshire
Email- Commissioner@northantspfcc.gov.uk
https://www.stephenmold.com
Please drop Mr Mold a polite, factual line on this travesty.
I hereby politlely request that people self-identifying as Northamptonshire police beings refrain from acting as strongmen for the local Labour party in future, something they’ve been factually doing so far?
No bloody chance of that leading to anything except maybe laughter and some other police forces being tipped off wrt potential troublemakers which could do with some proactive policing. Didn’t you ever wonder why open sale of stolen goods and trading of supposedly illegal drugs is happening everywhere in plain sight? Hint: It’s not because the police alone cannot see this. They just know why they ought to turn a blind eye to it.
He needs to name the scumbag labour councillor.
Isn’t it about time a senior copper was fired for promoting this sort of conduct amongst the lower ranks? Unless and until serious consequences follow this behaviour will continue.
Are the police given any training these days? The incidents where plod goes rogue seem to be occurring with increasing frequency. It’s almost as if they are trained to act outside the law. No surely not…
I’ve just sent Stephen Mold, the Northamptonshire Police Commissioner a message.
Please consider dropping him a polite, respectful and factual message.
Sir,
As Christian who lives in the county I’m frankly appalled by the treatment by Northamptonshire Police of Messrs Lawal and Stevens in this case of woke policing.
For the record, I hugely respect our force.
It seems the Chief Constable is now targeting Christians who hold the traditional Biblical view of homosexuality.
I wish to raise a formal complaint over this matter. As a published author and local speaker who has many Christian friends within the county, I also need to make you aware we feel intimidated by this woke policing. It seems policing ‘without fear or favour’ is no longer the ethos.
Sincerely
Thank you Neil.
Yet another fine advert for the Free Speech Union. It could be one of us next and I am not being glib with that comment.
This seems eminently winnable for the FSU. Go on Toby, tear them a new one!
We’d better all sign up and pay our subs then.
On the other hand, so far as I know the police do not harass the High Street Bible-thumpers that I see and hear every week who warn me of all manner of Evil in the world sometimes referring to activities banned by Leviticus. Perhaps police policy, guided by the Home Office, is to turn a blind eye unless the preacher or tweeter also holds a position of actual political influence?
The clue is he had been reported to the police by a local Labour Party member. Labour party members don’t enlist the police to help them furthering the political agenda of their party wrt to street preachers whose ranting and raving is of no conceivable concern to them. They probably could, though, which is bad enough.
I’m on a roll here … now written to Chief Constable Nick Adderley, copied to Police Commisioner and local MP.
Please do likewise if you can – remember they’ll be coming for you next.
Enough is enough.
Sir,
You will no doubt be aware of the action of your force against Anthony Stevens who was arrested, then held in custody for 9 hours simply for tweeting a link for a petition to defend King Lawal, both Northamptonshire councillors. The context is that King was sharing his traditional, Bible-based Christian beliefs.
For the record, I have long held our county’s police in high regard, publicising its efforts for motorcycle safety on my YouTube channel, the 3 videos now with over 100,000 hits. Your officers have always been highly responsive and effective on the occasions we have needed assistance. As an advanced rider, my mentor and riding buddy is an ex-police instructor. I was best man for a police sergeant’s wedding and have always held the thin blue line in the highest regard.
As a Christian myself of 50 years faith, I am frankly appalled by your officer’s treatment of Mr Stevens, and that in front of his family. This was clearly designed to intimidate, to send a message.
These actions bring Northamptonshire Police into disrepute, clearly abandoning the principle of policing ‘without fear or favour’. It is obvious now that some groups get more favour than others. I would remind you that Sir Robert Peel was a committed Christian and UK law is strongly rooted in Judeo-Christian principles.
I have raised the issue with the Commissioner and hope you focus your resources – paid for by people like me – on real crime and not wokism.
Sincerely
Excellent
Excellent letter. But will it get an equally excellent reply?
The content of the reply doesn’t really matter, Neil has set an excellent example of what we all need to do in our locality in similar cases if we wish to be both heard and the issue remedied. We are in the situation we find ourselves in because good people do nothing.
Response received 29/8 …
Thank you for emailing the Chief Constable, when this matter was brought to the attention of the Chief Constable he commissioned a review into the circumstances and facts. This is a live investigation so no comment will be made at this stage and will await the findings of the initial review.
Regards
Xxxx
Inspector xxxxx
Staff Officer to CC Nick Adderley / Head of Executive Support
Why is Toby Young saying the police have made a serious mistake? Is there evidence that it was a mistake rather than policy?
First question to Police…who has made the complaint?
Isn’t it about time that the ‘complainers’ were clearly identified?
If the police won’t tell you, don’t let them in in the first place…it’s about time that the people who make these bogus complaints were identified, so that they can be equally smeared by the publicity and hopefully successfully sued……?!
Someone must be wondering if Jesus Christ can save these two gentlemen. Chiefly from themselves. An elephant only has itself to blame if it lumbers into a pit. Or gets eaten by a pride of lions.
It’s never wise to defend the indefensible. Burning a book is hardly a matter of speech, free or otherwise. Being fascinated by these book burnings is ignorant. Tweeting a photo of the scripture concerned being placed on the floor would be offensive. Adding the strife of tongues to the plotting of men that is politics is not being slow to speak, as the Christian scripture would advise the counsellor.
Christian virtues do not rule England. If the Christian counsellor had been more aware of the nature of the ‘formidable season’ in which we live, and which, as a Christian he could have learned about quite easily from his Apostle, Paul (2 Tim. iii. 1-5), he could have saved himself a lot of unnecessary inconvenience. And Paul would have advised the counsellor to give respect to whom respect is due.
Book burning is a perfect example of free speech.
Quit rimming the islamists – they hate useful idiots like you as much as they hate the people applying a match to their handbook – you are the kuffar – you are beneath the animals to an islamist.
Before you start with the “not all muzzies” nonsense – consider this
“Radical” islamists demand the global caliphate as soon as possible and by any means necessary.
“Moderate” islamists are happy to wait for the radicals to deliver…
TRUST NOT A ONE OF THEM.
“Someone must be wondering if Jesus Christ can save these two gentlemen”
Save them from what?
Please give examples of “speech” and please clarify what speech you think should be prohibited by law and why.
What “respect” is due, to whom? Why is saving yourself inconvenience a virtue?
Do you think either of the men has committed a “hate crime”?
If you don’t think burning a book is “speech”, consider what action would have been taken had the book being burned been some bland volume such as a dictionary. Do you seriously think any action would have been taken? It’s absurd to think that would have been the case, therefore the action of burning a religious text is quite obviously speech.
So many of these cases seem to result from police not being very bright, and not understanding the laws that they are supposed to be upholding.
This seems to be repeated so often. Time for our Home Secretary to provide unambiguous orders to the police forces that speech upsetting senribilities in others us NOT an offence. This ‘hate crime’ thing has to stop.
The UK Keystone Cops are woefully Incompetent. They don’t understand that the day of reckoning will be upon them.
It seems that the only written part of our constitution is being torn up, the Magna Carta. It is probably the most important legal document ever written, and the fact that the Police do not understand it speaks volumes about their now undeclared purpose. This “hate speech” thing is bad law, made by idiots in Parliament without a clue of life, because pressure groups wanted it to kick back at some “foreign practices” which were criticised by the indigenous population. I am sure you all know what these include, rape, grooming etc.
I found this one of the most extraordinary actions to date by our woke police. I hope the FSU will help this councillor sue the pants off Nottinghamshire Police. It is also indicative that he was reported to police by a Labour councillor, which suggests what we might be in for when Labour next get into power.
Just a piece of advice if this should ever happen to you. The first thing you must do at the police station is ask to see the duty solicitor and not say anything else until you have spoken them.
This is now England . Banana Republic