This is just a quick update on ONS weekly death figures released today and the latest NHS figures for the causes of death.
There are three sets of figures that I identify as over-estimating the effect of covid-19 at the moment, as indicated on the above chart.
In the above, I have not used data from anywhere other than government sources. The approximation for false positives is not suggested to be an exact value but is based on the ONS estimate of prevalence and measured 'case' numbers. Because of the ill-effects of the ongoing anti-covid measures, I feel that it is expedient to work with something provisional. A tentative suggestion fits the bill better than a 'don't know'.
The main concern for everyone here will be the overall increase in deaths. From the outset, many of us were concerned that public health and mortality would be compromised by the excessive anti-covid measures. We are now seeing this happening - but the cause is being incorrectly attributed to covid-19. If the cause is not correctly identified, the solution will always miss the mark.
Agree with your analysis entirely.
I looked at the actual influenza and pneumonia data which can be downloaded. The data is slightly confusing.
Flu and Pneumonia Deaths are separated from covid deaths by:
1, Being involved in a death
2. Being the main cause of a death
The problem being who/what decides the main cause of a covid death when co-morbidity is involved in up to 95% of mortality?
I suspect the PCR test determines most deaths.
Confirming the suspicion it is now really a statistical covid epidemic we are experiencing and not a true covid epidemic
Thanks for the analysis. Dr Clare Craig is clearly onto this with some of her questions in today's LS blog.
Also, the fact that in the last few months there have been so many excess deaths at home (c.30K) some of which might have been avoided if they'd been hospitalised, must be impacting on the overall numbers.
