There are two ‘official’ death tolls on the Government’s COVID-19 dashboard. 138,852 is the number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test. 162,620 is the number of deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate.
The main reason the latter is larger than the former is lack of testing during the first wave. In the spring of last year, about 15,000 people in whose death COVID-19 was a contributing factor died without being tested.
So is 162,620 the pandemic’s true death toll? No. And that’s because it includes a large number of deaths that probably would have happened anyway.
How do we know this? Because if we calculate the excess deaths – the number of deaths in excess of what we’d expect based on previous years – we get a much lower number.
The official death toll for England and Wales, based on death certificates, is 147,031. Yet if we add up all the deaths since the start of March 2020, and subtract the average over the last five years, we get a figure of 117,476 (about 20% lower).
What’s more, due to population ageing, the average over the last five years understates the expected number of deaths. Hence the true number of excess deaths is about 15% lower. Taking this into account, the pandemic’s total death toll in England and Wales is about 100,000.
However, when it comes to events like pandemics, estimating the total death toll isn’t the best way to gauge the impact on mortality. Consider an example.
Japan and Mexico have about the same population, but there are more deaths each year in Japan. How can this be, when everyone knows Japan is a very long-lived country? The reason is simple: there are more elderly people in Japan, so there are more people at high-risk of dying each year.
A better way of comparing the level of mortality in Japan and Mexico is to use the age-standardised mortality rate or life expectancy. Both of these measures take into account the risk of dying at different ages, as well as the age-structure of the population. (In 2019, Japan’s life expectancy was 84, whereas Mexico’s was only 76.)
Last year, the U.K.’s age-standardised mortality rate rose by 12.8%. Although this is the largest one-year change since 1940 (the first year of the Blitz), the level to which mortality rose was lower than in 2008. And even the change should be put into context: 2019 was a year of unusually low mortality.
I previously estimated that the life expectancy in England and Wales last year was 80.4 – down from 81.8 in 2019. (Other researchers have reported similar figures.) So despite tens of thousands of excess deaths, life expectancy was still around 80.
The reason life expectancy didn’t fall further is that the vast majority of excess deaths were to people in their 70s and 80s. If there had been 100,000 excess deaths of people in their 20s and 30s, the drop in life expectancy would have been far greater. (In 1918, Spanish life expectancy fell by a staggering 12 years.)
Using data on life expectancy and population from the World Bank, we can calculate the percentage of the world’s population that lives in countries with a life expectancy lower than 80.4. For 2019, it comes out as 91%. This means that, in 2019, nine out of ten people lived in countries with a higher level of mortality than Britain experienced last year.
In many countries, of course, life expectancy is pulled down by the high level of infant mortality. Yet there are still large cross-country differences in life expectancy at age 10. For example, it’s 46 in Lesotho, compared to 72 in the U.K.
All this means that the level of mortality Britain experienced last year was neither exceptionally high by historical standards, nor by international standards.
As the ONS noted in a report last July: “The highest mortality rate observed during a ‘normal’ winter in Bulgaria has historically been greater than the highest mortality rate observed during the ‘abnormal’ coronavirus pandemic in England.”
For the last few paragraphs, I’ve been talking about 2020. But wasn’t the second wave, which peaked in January of 2021, even more deadly than the first? In short, no.
Although the number of deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate was higher in the second wave, the age-adjusted excess mortality was lower. In fact, the overall level of mortality in the first eight months of 2021 was lower than in 2018.
The reason is that many of those who died with COVID-19 on the death certificate in the winter of 2021 would probably have died anyway. In addition: some deaths that would have occurred a few months later were ‘brought forward’ by the pandemic.
Overall then, the pandemic was a major event, resulting in the largest one-year drop in life expectancy since the Second World War. On the other hand, mortality only rose to the level of 2008, and was still lower than the normal level of mortality in most countries around the world.
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“Overall then, the pandemic was a major event, resulting in the largest one-year drop in life expectancy since the Second World War.“
“Major” in medical and healthcare administration terms. Not particularly noticeable, in itself, for most people, would be a much more accurate description as far as the disease itself is concerned, because of its highly age stratified impact and similarity to common colds and flu’s in the vast majority of cases.
The response, on the other hand, has been dramatically significant. Calamitous, in fact. Arguably to a literally unprecedented degree.
Again – “Overall then, the pandemic was a major event, resulting in the largest one-year drop in life expectancy since the Second World War.“
Note – this ‘major event’ would not have registered as a pandemic prior to WHO’s revised definition (cynically – to help create ‘pandemics’). It never reached community epidemic proportions in the UK.
The increase in mortality was, in part, an expected return to previous (unexceptional) levels after an abnormal, sustained, ‘low’. This magnified the year-on-year effect.
Has Gordon Ramsay’s cat been included in these figures?
Is it dead?
Did he cook it?
So in the terrifying pandemic year of 2020 less people died from all causes than in 2008, i don’t remember the 2008 pandemic. And the average age of people dying from covid was a couple of years older than the average age people die in the UK, so does that mean people who die ‘from’ covid live longer than the average people who do not die from covid – bloody confusing stuff….
Anyway, apparently the health secretary is going to announce something this evening to keep us all safe. My guess is he will admit the vaccines don’t work and will follow the same policy used for masks and lockdowns – ‘Keeping doing the same thing over and over again and wait for something different to happen’ (also known as the deffinition of insanity) – He will announce that everyone should have more vaccines. (and pretend the boosters aren’t just the original vaccine that doesn’t work on the delta scariant)
anyway – rather interestingly….
There has never before been a vaccine, which in the course of eliciting antibody production, also causes our own immune system to turn against and destroy its own cells. This is quite horrifying. If there is significant tissue damage to heart or brain cells which do not regenerate, the effects can be permanent. Rather than side effects all these types of injury are the inevitable biological effects of these vaccines, the only variables being the degree and location of injury. Lesser signs of injuries which may manifest initially as headaches or tiredness can nevertheless result in long term serious issues as described by Cambridge educated experienced family doctor, Dr Hoffe: https://odysee.com/@NowWeAreFree:4/Hoffee:c
more vaccine safety available here…
https://www.independentinformation.co.uk/resources/articles/covid-vaccines-safe-effective
He’ll ban protesting as that spreads the ‘rona.
events that promote the state are healthy though.
There has never before been a vaccine, which in the course of eliciting antibody production, also causes our own immune system to turn against and destroy its own cells. This is quite horrifying.
On it’s own, this is absolutely not horrifying as it’s part of the normal immune reaction to viral infections: The infected cells are killed by the immune system to stop them from spreading viruses. It’s also not true that there has never been a vaccine which caused this: Smallpox vaccination used to be done with live viruses usually only causing a harmles illness which would result in immunity against the smallpox virus.
The issue with the present set of Sars-CoV2 vaccines is more that it’s going to cause more dangerous cell-damage than actual an Sars-CoV2 infection usually would.
How many deaths within 28 days of getting jabbed?
because the vaccines are perfectly safe, they must have died of covid
The vaxx program generates the mutant strains… vaxx the kids with leaky-non-100% immunizations and this accelerates the process.
Boosters… boosters…. boosters…. this is never ending till we say it does.
Are we on the same page yet?
if that question is for me then – yes.
are you a bit thick?
Do you think the BBC will start reporting that figure on their news bulletins?
All of this in a false paradigm in which healthcare workers were ordered to manage covid as though it was an incurable, untreatable disease. What would the figure have been if that hadn’t been the case?
And then got sacked for not having an injection that they managed without before….
People die, get over it. People always have & ALWAYS will.
No i’m not heartless, of course its devastating for relatives & loved ones, but it doesn’t change the fact we all die. That shouldn’t stop everyone else living.
Noah, you could alternatively just have said that the Rt-PCR tests are ‘rubbish-class’ and left it at that.
“ there are more deaths each year in Japan…. everyone knows Japan is a very long-lived country? The reason is simple: there are more elderly people in Japan, so there are more people at high-risk of dying each year.”
Intelligence test : Describe the fallacy contained in the above – and why one has to be extremely careful in the use of age-adjusted mortality rates. (I prefer to avoid them)
That apart, Noah – you are back into the business of rediscovering by the country route, an established fact long after it’s been settled. Best to take the motorway.
“… the level of mortality Britain experienced last year was neither exceptionally high by historical standards, nor by international standards.” – BINGO!!!!!
Inter-country comparisons are highly fraught; discussing the completely corrupt data of ‘Covid’ deaths is pointless.
From UK Health Security Agency chief executive Jenny Harries “The most recent seven-day average of daily deaths has been “flat” – but daily deaths are now “moving in the wrong direction”. So flat is wrong?
How long has it taken for the vaccine’s claimed effectiveness to collapse? Can we expect the booster to last any longer? It is after all exactly the same as the original pfizer one isn’t it?
Assigning people who are in hospital already on average with one serious co-morbility and many more with life threatening or terminal illnesses with “Covid” is actually where the deaths came from. Many in there 70s and 80s lost access to healthcare or were sent to there death in care homes in March-June 2020. Then there is the devastation to hospital treatment in general and the sustained excess deaths at home which we are still seeing now and we can see this “pandemic” was made more deadly using lockdowns, fearmongering and societal damages and not from the so called “virus”. Which is why the mortality rate is not much higher, many would have died sooner or later.
Wake up people! I fear its getting rather to late to still be debating this as the “Health Secretary” reminded us this afternoon you need to get your arm jabbed to keep your freedoms now…
It seems that a lot of the elderly who supposedly died ‘with’ covID in the first ‘spike’ were actually helped to meet their maker with Midazolam overdoses. Seeing as that would be mass murder most foul, maybe the Daily Sceptic could look at this claim, which is already backed by enough whistleblower evidence to warrant a serious investigative article? This govt is not simply a bit Yes Minister, it is more House of Cards, or worse.
Arguably the death toll is overstated by a large margin; the NHS statistics have repeatedly reported that 85 per cent of deaths were “comorbidities”. Thus many covid deaths might have been someone expected to die of cancer within 3 months, or someone with heart disease who might die within 1-2 years, who then caught Covid and died.
This is not to mention the ridiculous statistical treatment of someone who died in a car crash or fell off a ladder but was classed as a covid test because they tested positive within 28 days of dying.
– I bet you don’t see the authorities classifying covid vaccine deaths in this way!!
Covid Crusher: Mix one heaped teaspoon of Iodine table or sea salt in a mug of warm water, cup a hand and sniff or snort the entire mugful up your nose, spitting out anything which comes down into your mouth. If sore, then you have a virus, so continue morning noon and night, or more often if you want, until the soreness goes away (2-3 minutes) then blow out your nose and flush away, washing your hands afterwards, until when you do my simple cure, you don’t have any soreness at all, when you flush – job done. Also swallow a couple of mouthfuls of salt water and if you have burning in your lungs, salt killing virus and pneumonia there too.
Gargling, using saline solution or tablets is a waste of time, because they deal with Covid in the body and not the virus in the head, where it is at its most vulnerable – how silly such an easy thing to destroy, is left to become the
bio-weapon which kills you.
I have been doing this for over 27 years and not one person has died from this simple cure, or been injured from it from those I have been able to pass it on too, myself included.
The Iodine in the salt kills Coronavirus or the Flu, in the nasal passages of the head and flushes out the escutcheon tubes to the ears, the brain stem and the brain bulb, so no long Covid either – dead Coronavirus = no Covid in the body ever and the salt water provides a protection over the surfaces where Coronavirus and the Flu like to breed – pour a bit of solution on a flat surface and see how it dries – what viruses hate, because it murders them, kills them dead.
Irrespective of if you have been vaccinated or not, do my simple, free cure and avoid further booster shots if you can – or better yet, don’t get vaccinated at all – the vaccines kill, one way or another and horribly too, sooner or later and then we get around to those Nanobots and other things in the vaccines (shudder).
Richard
& how many within 28 days of the Freedom Vaccine? & pithing 180 days? & in 5 years from now!?
“If we calculate the excess deaths – the number of deaths in excess of what we’d expect based on previous years – we get a much lower number.”
Surely the problem with this analysis is that the lockdown will have reduced spread of, and hence the number of deaths from, other infectious diseases besides the coronavirus.
So it is therefore inappropriate to use the number of deaths in previous years as a baseline for the number of deaths to be expected in the absence of the coronvirus for a country under lockdown.