Tag: Age-adjusted mortality

With death rates and living standards stagnating, the NHS in crisis and net migration running at over 600,000, you could almost say the Conservatives are doing a lousy job in Government.

Many are concerned about the high number of deaths that occurred in 2022, particularly from heart-related causes. But some have suggested these were just due to an ageing population. This is wrong.

It’s possible that a serious crisis is developing in the NHS, and mortality will remain elevated for some time. However, we’ll only know that once we have the data. At the moment, there’s no reason to panic.

Recent headlines would have us believe that 2022 was an unusually deadly year, because of a "crisis" in the NHS. As a matter of fact, 2022 was the third least-deadly year ever in England and Wales.

First it was: "Sweden's a disaster!" Then it was: "Sweden did worse than its neighbours!" The latest excess mortality estimates from the ONS show that Sweden did *better* than three out of four other Nordic countries.

According to figures published by the ONS, Sweden saw the second smallest increase in national debt out of all EU countries. The UK, by contrast, saw the fourth largest – only Spain, Greece and Italy did worse.

January's age-standardised mortality rate was the second lowest on record for that month. And February's was too. On average, there has been no excess mortality since August – despite the Delta and Omicron waves.

One of the most startling facts of the pandemic is that, between January of 2020 and June of 2021, Sweden had negative excess mortality – the country’s age-standardised mortality rate was below the five-year average.

After two months of excess mortality, January's age-standardised mortality rate was 14% below the five-year average. This provides strong evidence for mortality displacement – the pandemic brought deaths forward.

Perhaps the biggest barrier to ending the pandemic and its related theatre is the irrational fear that many people still have of the virus, a fear that ironically grips the vaccinated much more than the unvaccinated.