AM deeply disappointed but not shocked. There’s no actual plan to look after people’s health, let alone properly inform them. This is societal or systemic breakdown.

Consider mortality data.

ONS changed staff assigned to the task. Now it is: “David Tabor, Merilynn Pratt and Patrycja Delong-Smith”.

What happened to the person who used to do it? Gone?

At the end of last year they admitted an error or two, which is otherwise rare:

“See correction,” it says. “Time series of deaths occurrences for 2022 in Experimental occurrences model table (Sheet 11) had not been correctly updated. This was because of a processing error and has now been corrected.”

This happened more than once. People reported based on false data.

So the staff changed, they admitted errors, and they have also changed how ONS presents this data. It makes it harder to compare current mortality to past years.

This is the old format:

And the new:

Notice they are counting 5 years of pandemic to make it seem like those numbers are finally down. They omit lots of other stuff.

In prior years it was possible to isolate pandemic years from “the real normal”.

Perhaps the “new normal” is “let’s pretend COVID is solved”.

“Ignore all the dead people and very unhealthy people, even children…”

Check out this new Finnish spin. The headline says THL: Disabled people died at greater rate during Covid pandemic. Not untrue. Disabled people, however, are distraction. All people died at a greater rate even “AFTER” (as if it ended) it. In some countries they now report that infection rates are soaring. In some it is at a record high.

The media hides the dead. So typical. Belittling the issue, downplaying the scale or the magnitude of several scandals, for which both the national media (broadcasters like Yle) and politicians can be held belatedly accountable.

This indicates a failure of the political system, the media, and health agencies. Health isn’t their priority.

New video

Description:

Direct link to parliament TV, https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/5e1f14d2-72b3-488f-a53c-fc94fee92dac

Link to Hansard full transcript, https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-01-16/debates/152B485D-812D-43CC-9D25-C2B651564810/ExcessDeathTrends?highlight=westminster%20hall#contribution-46059AFE-9A03-472B-9364-0BF972E2E7D8

Full speech from Dr. Johnson
This is a very important debate and I will try to make my speech as short as possible. I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire on raising this issue and on his determination to highlight the challenges that we are facing. On the one hand, we might have expected that the pandemic would shorten the lives of a number of our more frail citizens and thus have expected a fall in deaths post-pandemic, and we saw that. The ONS reported roughly 608,000 deaths in England and Wales in 2020, 586,000 in 2021, and 577,000 in 2022—that was higher than 2019 when there were about 531,000 deaths, so that does warrant further inspection. We expect a fluctuation year on year, and we also expect

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the total number of deaths to increase year on year as the population increases and ages. We therefore look at the five-year average, and currently we are using 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022 because of the outliers in 2020. Even then, it is unlikely that we will be exactly at the average, and we would expect some years to be higher or lower.

The ONS monthly mortality analysis shows that, in 2022, there were 32,000 more deaths than the five-year average, and in January to July 2023, there were 21,809 more. That equates to an annualised figure of around 37,000, but the figures appear to stop in July 2023. Would the Minister advise as to why the data series has been discontinued? It would be helpful if it were not. However, those are raw numbers and we must be cautious because, as the population ages and increases, so will the number of deaths. The ONS therefore uses the age-standard mortality rate, which has fluctuated month on month but is actually down for both 2022 and 2023 when compared with the five-year average. Overall, when adjusted for age and population size, the number of deaths is not excessive, given what we would expect.

We need to look further at the trends on age and the causes of death to see a fuller picture. Others will no doubt speak of rising cardiovascular disease in men, the late presentation of cancers or the rise in liver disease, but as a consultant paediatrician, I would like to focus on children. The National Child Mortality Database collates data on children’s deaths from nought to 18. Its latest bulletin from March 2023 shows that there were sadly 3,743 deaths to the end of that month, which is an increase of 8% on the previous year. Would the Minister comment on what investigation she is doing into the cause of that increased mortality and what is being done to prevent further deaths? The purpose of the child death overview panel is to investigate those deaths, but the average investigation is taking 392 days, with less than half completed in 12 months and a significant fall in the number being completed in 12 months. What is the Minister doing to improve that process?

One particularly distressing feature of child death data is that suicide or deliberate self-harm was a primary cause of death of children between 10 and 17 years, and looking at the data, it is getting much worse with children between 10 and 14. I understand that the Government are aware of those figures and are investing in mental health for children and improving online safety. I would be grateful if the Minister elaborated further on the steps they are taking to support children and prevent further tragedies.”

Description replicated in case Google censors him again:

Excess mortality in England post Covid-19 pandemic: implications for secondary prevention

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666776223002211?via%3Dihub

Many countries, including the UK, have continued to experience an apparent excess of deaths long after the peaks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

Numbers of excess deaths estimated in this period are considerable.

The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) has calculated that there were 7.2% or 44,255 more deaths registered in the UK in 2022

OECD, UK

https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=104676

Excess deaths in 2022, 52,514 (9.26%)

This persisted into 2023 with 8.6% or 28,024 more deaths registered in the first six months of the year than expected.

OECD, UK, weeks 1 – 44, 2023

Excess deaths, 49,389 (9.44%)

The causes of these excess deaths are likely to be multiple and could include the direct effects of Covid-19 infection,

acute pressures on NHS acute services resulting in poorer outcomes from episodes of acute illness,

and disruption to chronic disease detection and management.

Further analysis by cause and by age- and sex-group may help quantify the relative contributions of these causes.

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities

3rd June 2022 to 30th June 2023

Excess deaths for all causes were relatively greatest for 50–64 year olds (15% higher than expected)

11% higher for 25–49 and under 25 year olds,

and about 9% higher for over 65s

Several causes

3rd June 2022–30th June 2023

All cardiovascular diseases, 12%

Heart failure, 20%

Ischaemic heart disease, 15

Liver diseases, 19%

Acute respiratory infections, 14%

Diabetes, 13%

For middle-aged adults (50–64)

Cardiovascular diseases, 33% higher than expected

Ischaemic heart disease, 44%

Cerebrovascular disease, 40%

Heart failure 39% higher

Deaths involving acute respiratory infections, 43% higher

Diabetes, deaths were 35% higher

The pattern now is one of persisting excess deaths which are most prominent in relative terms in middle-aged and younger adults

Timely and granular analyses are needed to describe such trends and so to inform prevention and disease management efforts.

JP-S is Partner at Lane Clark & Peacock LLP, Chair of the Royal Society for Public Health and reports personal fees from Novo Nordisk and Pfizer Ltd outside of this submitted work.

Pandemic not over, this is not normal:

Week 51 noted.

It was 11.5k in 2014-2019 or about 11.2k in 2014-2018 (before COVID-19).

Open access using this link:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.14136

Effectiveness of a fourth SARS-CoV-2 vaccine dose in previously infected individuals from Austria

Evidence is limited on the effectiveness of a fourth vaccine dose against coronavirus disease 2019,

in populations with prior SARS-CoV-2 infections.

We estimated the risk of COVID-19 deaths (primary outcome)

We estimated the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infections (secondary outcome)

Methods

Austria nationwide retrospective observational study.

1 November to 31 December 2022

Primarily comparing individuals with four versus three vaccine doses.

Whole population data.

Results

3,986,312 previously infected individuals

281,291 (7,1%) had four vaccinations at baseline

1,545,242 (38.8%) had three vaccinations at baseline

We recorded

69 COVID-19 deaths

89,056 SARS-CoV-2 infections
The majority of COVID-19 deaths and a significant proportion of all-cause deaths occurred in nursing home residents

Relative vaccine effectiveness (rVE) for four versus three vaccine doses

-24% against COVID-19 deaths

17% against SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Protection against infection rapidly diminished over time,

and infection risk with four vaccinations was higher during extended follow-up until June 2023.

Adjusted HR for all-cause mortality for four versus three vaccinations was 0.79.

That is people with a 4th dose were only 79% as likely to die
(Suggesting healthy vaccinee bias, i.e. healthier persons received more vaccine doses)

Discussion

In previously infected individuals, a fourth vaccination did not reduce COVID-19 death risk,

but with transiently reduced risk of SARS-CoV-2 infections,

and reversal of this effect in longer follow-up.

All-cause mortality data suggest healthy vaccinee bias.

More details

Mostly Pfizer vaccine, some Moderna

In this study, overall case fatality rate, 0.08%.

(IFR, ? 0.008% if 10% of infections picked up)

Individuals with repeated previous infections had reduced re-infection risk

Natural immunity may be a main determinant of immunological protection in a population

By end 2022, the vast majority of the global population had already acquired some immune protection

Compared to three vaccine doses, those with fewer or no vaccinations did not differ with regard to COVID-19 mortality,

but had reduced risk of SARS-CoV-2 infections.

In 2022, infection fatality rates due to SARS-CoV-2 significantly declined suggesting transitioning into endemicity.

In general, our study results question whether recommendations for repeated vaccine boosters against SARS-CoV-2 are currently justified for large parts of the general population with a history of previous infections.

Measures against SARS-CoV-2 including vaccine policy should be critically re-assessed for their risk-to-benefit ratio.

As most SARS-CoV-2 infections are asymptomatic or mild in an endemic phase,

effectiveness of vaccinations should be primarily evaluated according to hard clinical outcomes (e.g. COVID-19 deaths)

Extended follow-up

From 1 January to 30 June 2023

Omicron XBB.1.5. was the predominant variant

225 COVID-19 deaths

174,174 SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Analyses in 2023 confirm no relative vaccine effectiveness (rVE) for four versus three vaccine doses for COVID-19 mortality,

but show higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infections with a rVE of ?17%