Are We Starting to See the Impact of Lockdown on Mortality?
The ONS announced on Friday that there were 44,474 deaths registered in England in September, which is about 4,000 more than in August, and 19.4% more than the five-year average.
19.4% is a non-trivial number, which makes this report slightly concerning. Last September, for example, the number of deaths registered in England was only 7% more than the five-year average.
If we look at the breakdown in the chart below, we see that Covid was the third leading cause of death. Interestingly, however, several other causes of death were above their five-year averages. This is in contrast to the situation in August, where eight out of nine other causes were below their five-year averages.
Notably, the age-standardised rates of death from dementia and Alzheimer’s, and from ischemic heart disease, were both above their five-year averages. Given that these are not respiratory conditions, the disparities are unlikely to be due to misattribution of deaths that were really caused by Covid.
The age-standardised rates of death from chronic lower respiratory diseases, from ill-defined conditions, and from colon and rectal cancers, were also above their five-year averages; although in the latter case, the disparity was negligible.
September’s overall age-standardised mortality rate was 11.2% higher than the five-year average, and was approximately equal to the value for March, which coincided with the final part of the second wave. This chart from the ONS shows the age-standardised mortality rate for the first nine months of the year, each year, going back to 2001:
Although the picture is basically the same as last month, cumulative mortality to date was slightly higher, as compared to previous years. However, the first nine months of this year were still less deadly than the corresponding period in 2015.
September witnessed the highest level of mortality since the end of the second wave. More interestingly, it was the first month of the year in which several causes of death other than Covid were above their five-year averages. After months of disruption to healthcare access and provision, are we now seeing the impact of lockdown on mortality?
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All the usual issues about “covid” death numbers and 5 year averages.
But after those have been addressed, there remains the irritation at the choice to call it “malignant neoplasm” instead of cancer.
I thought most people who have died with “Covid” written on their certification have been men and women aged 75+ who’ve gone out with pneumonia, in most cases probably contracted in hospital.
That first chart looks right fancy but it’s ridiculous – about as stupid as those polls asking Brexit voters why they did it (“economy”, “housing problems”, “sovereignty”, “employment”, “NHS”, etc. – anything other than the real reason).
“about as stupid as those polls asking Brexit voters why they did it (“economy”, “housing problems”, “sovereignty”, “employment”, “NHS”, etc. – anything other than the real reason).”
You don’t strike me as thick enough to be writing that unmindfully, so presumably it’s an intentional provocation. Which is fine by me.
Do feel free to explain what you have in mind as “the real reason”, in case it isn’t the usual smear.
In the meantime, you can also feel free to explain what you mean by “the usual smear”, in case it’s not the usual smear aimed at people concerned about their country.
“In the meantime, you can also feel free to explain what you mean by “the usual smear”, in case it’s not the usual smear aimed at people concerned about their country.“
Not sure why you’d think it might be any other.
Sorry, but calling people racists cause they’re worried about the ever rising crime rates in the streets, especially following the very recent murder of an MP and decades of children being abused with the full knowledge of law enforcement, is frankly insane. How about you stop all this racist BS, treating people as if they cannot do any wrong because of their race, and treat criminals like criminals, no matter their skin colour?
? Clearly your reading of the exchange is basically the opposite of what it actually was, and rather bizarrely so. I’d be interested to know your reasoning in reaching the position you set out here, as much out of curiosity as anything..
Star is or was (by his/her own past statement here) a remainer.
Star’s comment was presumably “the usual smear” against brexiters that they are really motivated by racism. Which was the reason for my response, though Star’s coyness left him/her the opportunity to wriggle out of it by claiming he/she intended some other “real reason”. Which is why I left that possibility open in my response.
You seem to have somehow reversed the position here to imply that I was making the smear that Star most likely was, and coming up with a literally absurd misrepresentation of my own positions.
Or is there some other interpretation of your comments directed at me that I’m missing here?
I gave you the opportunity to explain your position and you chose to be vague and unclear. It’s not my fault you don’t make your position clear.
Do you really think it wasn’t clear enough from the context? The vagueness stemmed from the original comment by Star.
I’m interested because I would have assumed that on this particular issue we would find ourselves quite strongly on the same side, and Star on the opposite. Yet you seem to have launched into a fairly strong attack on a position you attributed to me that is pretty much the opposite of my actual position, which I have made pretty clear here regularly (and indeed you and I have had exchanges on, fairly regularly).
Yes. I really think it wasn’t clear enough. Which is why I asked the question I asked.
Ok. I suppose I wondered why you launched into me rather than Star, who made the original intentionally vague comment.
BREXIT ! Brexit ! brexit ! err “ Shit
Correct, but isn’t the DS sitting on the fence?
Ref irritation at naming; yes, and that they split it three ways, by organ, as if cancer occurring in different parts of the body is not the same disease. If they listed the three “malignant neoplasms” under one heading the mortality rate of cancer would be clearly as big as or even bigger than the number dying from Alzheimers/dementia, and the leading cause of death. PS. Also, I think I need to find out why Alzheiners/dementia even qualifies as a cause of death; I thought it just caused mental confusion, etc.
”Also, I think I need to find out why Alzheiners/dementia even qualifies as a cause of death;”
It seems to me that Alzheimers/dementia has replaced the old catch all of ‘died of old age’, this used to be commonly used but has gone out of favour although it is still accepted as a death cause for anyone over 80.
Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia definitely are a cause death, see https://www.seniorlivinghelp.co/signs-of-death-in-elderly-with-dementia/ it basically is down to the different areas of the brain being affected which cause difficulties in the activities of daily living such as eating and drinking as well breathing.
Died of old age can only be applied legally to the over 80’s.
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/blog/research-UK-biggest-killer-high-dementia-deaths may be of interest as well.
I’m beginning to think that all this talk of the Vulnerable Old Aged should be replaced by Vulnerable Frail.
I know of a 95 Year old, un-vaccinated owing to medical condition, who still does occasional shopping trips to a so called high risk area, unmasked !!! – a friend helps with the shopping trolley. Clearly not frail, (she also survived the WW2 London Blitz) . Now compare with a child born with a genetic defect or on Chemo’. Clearly frail, at least in most cases.
Also, I think I need to find out why Alzheiners/dementia even qualifies as a cause of death; I thought it just caused mental confusion, etc.
Yes that seems true, but perhaps substitute CJD or Mad Cow.
Have to use the correct Jargon, otherwise the Medical MAJIK is absent.
“The ONS announced on Friday that there were 44,474 deaths registered in England in September, which is about 4,000 more than in August, and 19.4% more than the five-year average. 19.4% is a non-trivial number, which makes this report slightly concerning. Last September, for example, the number of deaths registered in England was only 7% more than the five-year average.”
“Non-trivial” 🙂 What you need to look at for starters is the spread of monthly figures over say the past five years around the seasonally-weighted average. Perhaps they go up and down like a tart’s knickers. Perhaps it’s extremely rare for them to vary by more than 5% from the average. Then you can begin to get a handle on the significance of a 19.4% excess.
That’s a very good point. And not just the total figure, but broken down by disease type, as it’s possible that deaths from certain of the diseases are more subject to wild fluctuations than others.
Here are the age standardised mortality figures for England since 2021 plotted on a Florence Nightingale chart.
It’s a bit hard to see but September 2021 (it’s where the bright red line ends in September) is a bit of an outlier taking us back to roughly the figure in 2010.
And if we truncate the axis to see what is happening a bit closer in recent months this is what we get. So you can see a bit more clearly that September 2021 is a bit of an outlier although slightly higher (ASM) mortality was recorded in September 2010
And May 2021 is an outlier in being particularly low. A result of the early passing of many people in Winter 2020/2021 who were towards the end of their life.
Thank you very much for these. I’d forgotten about the Nightingale graphic. It’ll be interesting to see if figures this year carry on going up or drop back again, which would then still more or less fit previous patterns.
“What you need to look at for starters ….”
… is a whole lot of things. ‘Statistics’ isn’t essentially about pushing a set of numbers around. It’s about intelligent ways of looking.
And similar pattern for Wales
And ‘zoomed’ in to see the recent months for Wales
With the attachment this time
Lockdowns or the vaccines, take your pick. Either way, the damage is on the government. How is Sweden doing?
Yes. It looks as if it could be both, the increased mortality from Alzheimers/dementia caused by lockdowns and the increased number of heart disease deaths caused by the vax.
A sure way to kill the frail is to remove loving attention and contact with the outside world, easy.
The mind body interaction (mind over matter) Now a Conspiracy Theory, although who are the conspirators??? Look up the Morphic Field hypothesis.
Or increased drugging of the demented in institutions in the absence of visits and with low staff ratios – and the compliance of gps.
Would these figures overall not be expected to be lower due to the reaping in spring 20 and winter 20/21?
If Sweden’s mortality is closer to the average, that would suggest the lockdowns rather than the jabs, given that they’ve all been jabbed over there.
Important observation, thanks. I’d started to jump to another conclusion. We must all be careful not to do that.
Yes – you just have to stand back and recognize what can and what can’t be gleaned.
The really important thing is that vaccine efficacy is blown out of the water. Bearing in mind that there has never been such a vaccination rate as this, there is no doubt.
Seems excess mortality in young adults across both the USA and Europe are rocketing?
Quite the change 2021 vs 2020… let’s take a stab at what’s triggering these escalating fatalities?
chart
My SIL died of dementia in June. She went downhill fast after lockdown, church services and community had kept her going before that and she was in the early stages, jumped a few stages very quickly plus she had the jab 2 weeks before.
I know. The deterioration of the elderly after being cooped up is awful. Many are just giving up, their hope to have their lasts years filled with a bit of enjoyment, gone. So many have taken the jabs hoping it would save them, are now suddenly suffering with serious “new” conditions.
Well, the government did expect up to 200,000 people to die from the side-effects of lockdown, in a not very much publicised report…
https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/20/coronavirus-lockdown-cause-200000-extra-deaths-13014848/
Still, it it saves one life.
And they’ll say they balanced that against Prof lockdowns wild models. Its a disgusting time in our history
Exactly.
And we will say “but look at Sweden”.
And they will say “look at this squirrel”.
Did they find the saved life yet?
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson
Lockdown saved his life. If he hadn’t done it he’d have met an untimely death by now, I suspect.
Political death, yes. However, looking on the bright side, gullibility can work both ways. It could be even worse with someone else in that job.
The other thing not mentioned here is the extremely mild autumn that we have had so far, when numbers should be down for Sept/Oct.
I know of people who are still having trouble getting appointments with their GP’s and when they do finally get one its usually just a quick conversation over the phone hardly ever face-to-face – so I can imagine may patients are being misdiagnosed and are ending up in hospital – in fact I often hear people say that they don’t bother with their GP anymore and just go straight to A&E even just with coughs and colds.
That well may be the case in some surgeries but it isnt in mine. Everyone gets contacted on the same day and seen if they need to be . All feverish kids are seen face to face same day.
Mine is doing well too. And the new chance to just have a brief phone chat with a GP is very time-saving in some cases.
This almost certainly due to lack of access to medical facilities for whatever reason. The CoViD19 figures are probably skewed because of the death within 28 days of a positive test result.
That is for sure.
And yet, after the factual corruption has been pointed out hundreds of times their covid death figures persist and circulate so as to make them an accepted fact.
They have the megaphone. They control the narrative.
Not to depress anyone but, they’ve managed to create a parallel factual universe with respect to the risk of covid, masks, vaccine injuries, vaccine efficacy and of course the efficacy of lockdowns. So I doubt they will have much trouble convincing the masses that lockdowns haven’t caused any deaths or that lockdown related deaths are rare and tiny in number compared to thousands, nay millions, that were saved by lockdown.
They have the megaphone.
They hold the megaphone in an echo chamber courtesy of the MSM.
Extract from ConWoman
“Dr Mark McDonald, child psychiatrist, Los Angeles: ‘Fear has been the driving force of this pandemic from the very beginning. What’s driving the fear now is propaganda. I see kids all day long. The developmental stage that children need to go through – babies, toddlers, young adults – is being foreclosed on them.
‘Brown University department of paediatrics published a study that found babies born after January 1, 2020, have an IQ drop of 20 points. Why? They don’t see faces. They don’t play. They don’t have exposure to friends. They don’t go to school. They’re basically locked in their homes, looking at their parents for a year and a half. And their brains have not developed.
‘My concern is that we are building a generation of young people who are so traumatised that they will never fully recover. They’re always going to be scarred emotionally.”
The damage this government has caused to the future generation needs addressing, so lets start with Nuremburg II.
Its strange but back in Feb 2020 just before the first ‘3 weeks to flatten the curve‘ lockdown I came down with a severe case of flu (or at least thats what I thought it was – now I’m convinced it was covid) – I treated it as the flu and was over it within a week or so. Up until recently I was very pleased with myself because being unjabbed I have not had so much as a sniffle since Feb 2020 while all around me the double-jabbed were coming down with all kinds of bad cold-like symptoms, sore throats, coughs, runny noses etc – well being around these double-jabbed coughers and sneezers 24/7 I suppose I was bound to catch something and I did last week – a sore throught and a runny nose that lasted no more than a couple of days – meanwhile the double-jabbed around me are still trying to shrug off their cold-like viruses for almost two-three weeks now without any easing of symptoms. So in a way I was dissapointed to catch something after almost 19 months of nothing but in another way I’m glad I did because my unhampered immune system was… Read more »
Your natural immune system IS your best friend – there is no substitute!
I would like to fully agree with you on this, being a strong believer in our innate abilities to fight off disease if eat well, etc etc. 🙂 Like you I had what I’ve since realised was almost certainly a bout of covid in late January 2020, a couple of days of very atypical cold-flu-thing with high fever, even a bit “delirious”, and a week or more of a painful and annoying peculiarly dry cough, plus some nausea etc, ( and I have since experienced mild bouts of what had been referred to as “covid toes”, non-seasonal chilblains ). Again like you, absolutely nothing else though, not a sniffle, since then, which is unusual as I would normally catch/suffer from at least one fairly bad cold a year. But now I have a cold-thing, and have had since the weekend before last, 9+ days ago, and it simply doesn’t seem to want to go. It was mainly a raised temperature and annoying prickly/dry cough and slightly swollen/sore throat, which wouldn’t go, plus frequent sneezing, and now it’s a dribble sniffy nose aswell, and less of the cough. And, like you, I am unvaxxed, eat well, have never worn a mask,… Read more »
Heart disease you say? Nothing to see here. Move along.
Here are a few observations from the ” front line ” .
The so called pandemic of the ” unvaccinated ” was last June and July ; it is long past . The only Covid patients I have dealt with since that time have been ” fully jabbed ”
There has been a lot of kids with minor viral illnesses over the summer and this week I have seen a wave of hand foot and mouth kids. The Covid wave in children and adolescents is dropping off quite rapidly now.
A few of our staff have had Covid but no doctors; mainly it is receptionists catching it in the home environment . In fact I know of no doctors who have had Covid for a year. Contrary to some commentators beliefs all my colleagues locally have been seeing patients face to face . On reflection I think that most front line medical staff were exposed to the virus in the three months prior to March 23 2020 and have acquired immunity.
An interesting observation.
On the general front, misnamed ‘Covid’ has cropped up recently in the wider family – more than at any other time. All infections have been moderate to mild, with a 6-year old experiencing a bit of a stomach upset and cold. But all adults are double-jabbed.
My sister-in-law had a genuinely nasty infection in April 2020, and was hospitalized. In a way, I am sympathetic to her getting double-jabbed, because it was a very unpleasant experience, and she had no obvious co-morbidities. But, of course, she has the best immunity going without any jabs.
She decided to have the ‘booster’ last week (a case of ‘doh!’ thinking – that ‘more is better’). She felt really rough for three days – the worst since her actual illness.
‘Nuff said.
Super interesting stuff as always, Peter. Many thanks for posting.
When is a covid death most probably not a covid death? When a death is listed as a covid death.
B-dum! Tisshhhhhh! ( canned laughter and round of applause )
I lost my Dad in August, my SIL lost her mum, and two of my friends each lost someone close in the last two months. None had covid. All were at home suffering from ailments and conditions for which, in two cases, appropriate medical care had become inaccessible.
I read the first paragraph, and knew that this was another Noah piece, with its blithe acceptance of narrative data framing. ‘Five year average’ : How often does it have to be said that this is no useful baseline metric? Those five years are a period including an historical minimum. It’s like judging adult height against a selection of children. ‘Covid was the third leading cause of death.’ : If you accept that at face value, you’re a sucker. NO-ONE knows the direct effect of Covid on mortality. FFS – even the distinction between the presence of a serious viral load of SARS-CoV-2 and Covid disease isn’t known. Such figures are bollocks, and are part of the scare campaign. Stand back and the claim is literally incredible. ‘the disparities are unlikely to be due to misattribution of deaths that were really caused by Covid.’ Really??? How naive can you get? ‘September’s overall age-standardised mortality rate was 11.2% higher than the five-year average’ : This is a bollocks piece of data. The comparison of one month with another is meaningless, given the shifting pattern of mortality. Only (in parallel with establishing a meaningful baseline) by looking at longer periods does a… Read more »
I’m so f*cking sick of being told to “protect the NHS”. In a real alleged ‘pandemic’ you wouldn’t be willing to sack 100,000 healthcare professionals. It’s about control, not health.
I don’t understand the stats
what if you die of heart disease but recently tested +ve for covid
what if you die of old age but had covid, heart disease, alzheimers and cancer? How does it get recorded?
as far as I am concerned, 95% of ‘covid’ deaths were old age
It’s all nonsense, probably 90% of all deaths are due to old age, when you’re old your immune system is weaker etc. & There’s a good reason why we all die, It’s natural process.
The mistake is adopting the government narrative they were saving lives, when they were actually saving their careers.
‘Covid’ deaths or vaccine deaths? The latest VAERS figures from America are shocking.
818,042 Adverse Events
127,641 Doctor Visits
83,412 Hospitalizations
92,017 Urgent Care
26,199 Disabled
10,179 Bell’s Palsy
10,304 Myocarditis
8,408 Heart Attacks
2,631 Miscarriages
17,128 Deaths
The deaths from jabs, realistically, will not be a major feature of this graphic. The flaws are elsewhere.
The Covid figure is, as we all know, complete and utter bullshit. The out of control “authorities” are still using the 28 day system and therefore they have no idea whatsoever how many actually die from Covid.They are still keeping the figure artificially high. These figures should be important and accurate because they go to form priorities but how do you decide a priority on a figure you know is bullshit and may as well be a sucked finger in the air in front of a fan?
Increase in Deaths due to Dementia/Alzheimer’s?? In a coronavirus vaccine animal study, 95% of the mice were all dead within 2 weeks of mad cows disease & the monkey study showed they all had Lewy bodies ( a precursor to Dementia/Alzheimer’s) after 6 weeks. Lockdowns or a totally predictable result of the vaccine?
Surely, if you take out the Covid 19 deaths, the increase over the 5 year average is tiny?
Why take out the “covid19” deaths? It’s most like the majority of them would have occurred this year anyway without covid, because that’s mostly who dies with covid.
Am I the only person who thinks that now when we look at vaccinated and unvaccinated in hospital ‘with Covid’ we need a third prong, which is looking at the ‘excess deaths’ to see if they are predominantly vaccinated? I say this because of two things one is that John Dees Almanac on Facebook stated a few weeks ago that the ‘big’ story from the statistics he was looking at was the amount of double-vaccinated numbers being hospitalised with heart problems. This has now been confirmed by someone I know who works in a hospital where she says heart ‘problems’ are sky rocketing?
I’m not sure why you’re not considering the most likely obvious cause of death i.e. vaccines. Lockdown maybe but we were already out of lockdown by August and prior to that lockdown wasn’t severe so it may have had an impact but to consider it as the only impact is ignoring the obvious in my opinion. Also the backlog in NHS treatments due to advising people to stay at home during lockdown could be another key cause.
Nothing to do with the death shots. NOT