A “dog ate my homework” moment?

After much waiting, and maybe a dozen page refreshes^*, we finally get this:

Are these numbers reliable?

Can they blame Microsoft Excel? Either way, vigilant citizens are being left in the dark for about 3 weeks^**. How hard can it be to just count death certificates (no classification needed)?

________
^* I’ve been very eager to see these numbers. We see reports about COVID and hospitalisation surges.
^** It’s hard not to feel like they may be ‘hiding’ the dead now (the totals at least). Delaying the information? We have a vaccine crisis, virus crisis, freezing wave etc.

Aside from the bizarre working hours, there were other factors.

Summary: Abuse and bullying by management at Sirius ‘Open Source’ caused health problems for some staff; this is no laughing matter as there can be legal ramifications

THIS series is about halfway through now. It has only been prepared for a number of weeks and more material is being added as we go along.

Speaking for myself, I never took sick leave (or time off work for illness) in my entire time in the company. The same goes for my wife. But colleagues have had different experiences. One was rushed to the hospital with COVID-19 (from which he never fully recovered) and another suffered from abuse by managers. This abuse was causing health issues, in effect harming the health of staff, as we shall show much later in this series. This is what happens when completely untrained (not merely insufficiently or improperly trained) people are assigned or entrusted to manage a company with workers who are difficult to recruit and then retain. Skilled and experienced staff is very hard to find and keep.

As a reminder, managers at Sirius aren’t there for their skills but for nepotism. They posses no relevant skills and clients can notice this. Of course it can in turn lead to contract cancellations and non-renewals.

Here’s the relevant part of the report:

In later years the nepotism (to be expanded upon in the final section) became apparent. Some people were basically implicitly shielded from criticism.

For instance, one colleague was often late to the shift and did not apologise. Her partner did the same thing — basically came online almost half an hour late without apology. This is abject disrespect for colleagues, even people who have been in the company for much longer than them. The three-way relationship involved here will be explained later.

The above examples are merely a small subset and some are based on distant but accurate recollections of a rather dark era of distress. When a conceited manager is accusing, without any actual evidence, people of “cooking” while on the job it doesn’t sound like management but just an attempt to shame staff. As an aside, it was often unclear what the management itself was doing (if anything substantial at all). There was a sentiment that some management people colluded and perpetrated schemes against individual members of staff, not limited to Roy and Rianne. This often backfired. There were also examples of retaliation attempts. One common tactic, which can be witnessed outside the realm of high-tech as well, is to psychologically manipulate or assign people nonsensical things, e.g. asking then to perform totally meaningless jobs that don’t yield anything at all and don’t improve but rather worsen the service, encumbering staff, never to be checked by anyone (as if just to waste time). This happened in Sirius too.

The hypocrisy was not just routine; it was a new standard, e.g. reprimanding people for not picking up the phone fast enough even when there were upstream technical faults (supplier) or when Reception was far slower to pick up the phone, if at all. This sort of hypocrisy or these attempts to shame staff are akin to guilt tripping. Healthy work environments would weed out such behaviour outright.

Week 48 deaths:

Data: 2022 deaths as OpenDocument Format

New figures released today. 11,307 deaths in England and Wales for the last week — far above the usual. For perspective, 10,164 were registered for the same week prior to COVID-19 (2015-2019 average).

That’s an increase of 1,143 in about half a decade, representing 11.2% (relative) increase.

The new cluster in the low-risk percentile are younger people. In other words, more young people die.

Published hours ago:

Description:

Self reported long covid

2.2 million (3.4% of the population)

Of those, as of 6 November 2022

87% more than 12 weeks

55% at least one year

27% at least two years

Symptoms

Fatigue 70%

Difficulty concentrating 48%

Shortness of breath 46%

Muscle ache 45%

Adversely affected the day-to-day activities, 1.6 million (75% of self-reported long COVIDs)

Self-reported long COVID more common

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/infections

Aged 35 to 69 years

Females

Living in more deprived areas

Working in social care

Another activity-limiting condition or disability?

People not working and not looking for work

i.e.

If you are working or actively looking for work you are less likely to report long covid

Proportions of LC

Vaccination status not given

Cumulative change in number of people aged 16 to 64 years inactive because of long-term sickness

Long COVID is not the main factor

Working-age adults

(Economically inactive because of long-term sickness)

Has been rising since 2019

363,000 more since start of pandemic

ONS reasons

NHS waiting times

Long-term sick

other health problems or disabilities

(may include LC)

April to June 2022

97,000 higher than the same period in 2019

(a 41% increase)

Excess deaths, (ending 2 December 2022)

372 deaths involving COVID-19 registered in the UK

2.9% of all deaths

(400 in the previous week)

A total of 12,866 UK deaths

5.1% above the five-year average

Zoe symptoms as of this week (13th December)

Sore throat, 64%

Runny nose, 57%

Blocked nose, 57%

Headache, 54%

Sneezing, 53%

Cough, no phlegm 53%

Cough with phlegm, 44%

Hoarse, 40%

Muscle pains / aches 24%

Altered smell, 20%

Swollen neck glands, 19%

Dizzy, light headed, 19%

Fatigue, 17%

Loss of smell, 17%

Sore eyes, 17%

Shortness of breath, 15%

Chest pain / tightness, 15%

Earache, 15%

Chills or shivers, 13%

Wheezing, 11%

Full Zoe report

http://email.mg.joinzoe.com/c/eJwdjs1uwyAQhJ_G3IKWHxs4cOil70HYNSbC3gicVurT14k0h5Fm5tNQVIuDoGY_g8DoCcijqFGD1korA045HWTOblnX1ZBWzqClycJe5IPr8cckM-9iixnQAZpFeWcskrfg9WpCoNnONlglWtzO8zkm8zXp70uZj8Htmjd-oSzMpX1YVzRO7qnQ5e6dfwf1T_2n4u35ureab5jOJEWPD96OeuTUWx3tfavsqbY35R-jWUPB

Data for this article: Baby deaths [Open Document Format]

Hypothesis: babies born into the pandemic are equally likely to survive (but caveats exist, e.g. maybe only more affluent families still have kids and medical treatments continue to improve)

So I’ve decided to check how the pandemic affects babies, specifically people under the age of 1 in England and Wales, for which we have complete data from ONS.

Based on the available data, 2,190 children under the age of 1 died so far this year, compared to 2,322 (132 more) in 2019. Those kids might be born a year earlier, i.e. in 2021 and in 2018.

Births in 2018 were 5.2% higher than in 2021, based on the official figures. 657,076 – 624,828 = 32,248 (fewer births in 2021 than in 2018), representing a big decrease.

Old data can be found here (births in England and Wales). It says: “There were 679,106 live births in England and Wales in 2017, a decrease of 2.5% from 2016 and the lowest number of live births since 2006.”

In 2018 there was a decrease. To quote: “There were 657,076 live births in England and Wales in 2018, a decrease of 3.2% since 2017 and a 9.9% decrease since the most recent peak in 2012.”

More recent data comes from this page (also see “Births by parents’ country of birth, England and Wales: 2021″). To quote: “There were 624,828 live births in England and Wales in 2021, an increase of 1.8% from 613,936 in 2020, but still below the 2019 figure (640,370); 2021 remains in line with the long-term trend of decreasing live births seen before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.”

It also says: “There were 2,597 stillbirths in 2021, an increase of 226 from 2020; this is similar to the 2,522 stillbirths in 2019. [..]. The stillbirth rate in 2021 increased to 4.1 stillbirths per 1,000 total births compared with 3.8 in 2020; this is also higher than the rate seen before the coronavirus pandemic in 2019 (3.9).”

Based on the available data, the number of babies dying in their first year was similar in the past year to what it was before the COVID-19 outbreak. If adjusted to the total number of births, compensating for disparity and assessing the ratio.

It may be safe to conclude that babies’ mortality rate (at least here) did not worsen in recent years, unlike all the other age groups.