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Archive for November, 2022

Office for National Statistics Makes It Hard to Demonstrate Increase in Heart Failures

As per these pre-pandemic numbers, the causes of death across the UK look like this:

Disease death range of years

This should be self-explanatory. The data is here as ODF.

2022′s breakdown by causes is framed rather differently, which makes comparison difficult (maybe intentionally).

2022 cause of death

The corresponding Web page does not specify totals per cause. The hypothesis here is that there’s a correlation between the increases in heart attacks or other cardiac events. Some are fatal.

An earlier report said that “leading cause of death in England in June 2022 was dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (10.8% of all deaths); in Wales, the leading cause was ischaemic heart diseases (10.7% of all deaths).”

So there’s somewhere around 11%. This is for June:

Cause of death in June

To quote some more:

In the first six months (January to June) of 2022, the leading cause of death in England was dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (107.7 deaths per 100,000 people). In Wales, the year-to-date leading cause of death was ischaemic heart diseases (116.8 deaths per 100,000 people).

In England, the year-to-date COVID-19 mortality rate decreased to the fifth leading cause of death (46.7 deaths per 100,000 people) from the third in May 2022. This was statistically significantly lower than the top two leading causes of death (dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and ischaemic heart diseases), and significantly lower than four of the other seven leading causes.

In Wales, deaths due to ischaemic heart diseases, and dementia and Alzheimer’s disease were also the top two leading causes of deaths. They were statistically significantly higher than any other cause of death. Deaths due to COVID-19 decreased to the sixth leading cause of death in the year-to-date (46.9 deaths per 100,000 people), from fourth in May 2022. This was significantly higher than all leading causes ranked lower.

So about 1.17 in 1,000 people died with “leading cause of death [being] ischaemic heart diseases” in the first 6 months.

The tendency to release in such inconsistent presentation forms (or presenting different kinds of data) makes one wonder if the motivation is to hide something. Why should it be so hard to figure out how many people died annually from heart failure before and during the pandemic?

An Emergent Pandemic of Sudden Deaths in the UK (People Dying at Home)

Sharp increase in sudden deaths e.g. heart failure

ONS has released this data, but it left out pertinent numbers for the past 5 years so we cannot compare pre-COVID-19 and pre-vaccination numbers to this year’s huge figures.

Remember that the 5-year average includes 3 years of pandemic and only 2 years pre-pandemic. This can be misleading, giving a false sense of progress.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Deaths: Open Data as OpenDocument Format (ODF)

Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights: Deaths

It’s good that this data has been published, but the Office for National Statistics (ONS) foolishly or inadvertently (certain inadequately) favoured proprietary Microsoft formats instead of open standards. Here are the data sets in a free format:

  1. Deaths involving COVID-19 decreased in the UK
  2. The proportion of deaths involving COVID-19
  3. Mortality rates due to COVID-19
  4. Deaths by age
  5. Pre-existing health conditions
  6. And obesity as factor
  7. Excess deaths
  8. Private homes death location
  9. COVID-19 and flu deaths
  10. Evidence that average age of death is lower for COVID-19 than flu and pneumonia

ONS: More Than 1 in 50 People in England Estimated to be COVID-19 Positive This Month

And here is the graph plotted based on this new data:

% of population testing positive for COVID-19

UK Survey on Top Issues as Perceived by the Public

More people reported the rising cost of living and the NHS as important issues facing the UK than the COVID-19 pandemic. Proportion of all adults in Great Britain reporting important issues facing the UK today, 26 October to 6 November 2022:

Issue: (followed by % concerned)
The cost of living 93%
The NHS 82%
The economy 79%
Climate change and the environment? 66%
Housing? 53%
Crime 49%
International conflict 47%
Education? 43%
Immigration? 43%
EU Exit 41%
Employment 31%
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic 29%
OtherĀ  5%

Over 13,000 Registered Deaths in the UK Per Week in Autumn (We’re Still Losing Almost as Many People as When COVID-19 Started)

IT IS hard to find mortality rates (pre-COVID-19) for the whole of the UK. The closest thing to it is this FOIA/FOI request or this month’s data file, which shows:

UK deaths based on ONS

The number on the right is total deaths per week (2022).

Looking at the FOIA, here’s what it says: “Using the Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional, as at week 46 (13th November 2020) 529,928 registered deaths in England and Wales.”

For the year prior: “In 2019, there were 530,841 deaths registered in England and Wales.”

Screenshot below included, as the page will vanish one day:

ONS FOIA

So far, in the first 43 weeks of 2022, in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined there have been 536,196 deaths (I’ve put together the numbers).

We’re seeing about 13,000 deaths per week, so expect 40,000 more in the 3 weeks that follow, i.e. about 575,000 deaths.

In the above FOIA, ONS does not give the complete figures for the whole of the UK (those are hard to find, maybe by intention), but using this weekly update we get for England and Wales:

471,064. With 9 more weeks ahead (for the year to finish). 3 more weeks from now it’ll be about 502,000 compared to 529,928 at the same period in 2020.

wales-england-deaths

Extrapolate a little and find that in 2022 we’re not doing a lot better (than in 2020) in terms of preventing deaths.

Twitter is Collapsing: In Numbers…

I quit Twitter at the start of the year, but…

Usually I get a notification each day. Now… nothing in days:

Twitter notifications

People leaving so far this month:

Twitter departure

In the past 28 days:

Down in Twitter

Those aren’t people who become inactive. They’re usually those who delete their account or get banned.

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