Thread by @MonkEmma

I don’t know if anyone has seen the pernicious claim flying round social media in the last few days that only “17,000 people in the UK have died from #covid”

I’ve yet to see anyone debunk it so I thought I’d do a 🧵

1/

Recently, I saw a number of people making the same, obviously false claim along the lines of “only 10% of covid deaths are actually covid deaths”

I asked for sources repeatedly and eventually got sent a link to an @ONS Freedom of Information request…

2/

ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transp…

The ONS were asked for the numbers of people who had died from covid, but had no other underlying conditions.

The answer came back as ~17,000.

So does that mean the other 150,000 didn’t die of covid??

No - of course it doesn’t.

3/

Let’s take a look at the definitions used by the ONS:

They use the term “due to COVID-19” when referring only to deaths with an underlying cause of death as COVID-19

From their weekly reports we know they use the term “involving covid” and “due to covid” to differentiate.

4/

From their 2020 report they said:

“Of the 73,766 deaths registered in England and Wales in 2020 with an underlying cause of death of COVID-19…..”

73,766 deaths in 2020 had an UNDERLYING CAUSE OF DEATH OF COVID-19.

Not deaths involving covid, covid was the cause.

5/

Now I presume the people sharing this stuff haven’t actually read the ONS data - otherwise they would have read the definition used.

I assume they genuinely believe that somehow having an underlying condition means you were about to die anyway and covid merely “helped”

6/

However we know from the Intensive Care reports that around 90% of covid patients in #ICU were living wholly independent lives prior to catching #covid.

They weren’t at deaths door before covid. In fact less than 15% of covid patients in ICU have severe comorbidities

7/

So what were the “underlying health conditions” on the death certs of people who died of Covid?

I wonder how many people reading this may surprise themselves by finding their own, minor, fully controlled, health issues on the list🤷‍♀️

Note they are “deaths DUE TO COVID”

8/

Here are the top 20 from the death certificates of people who died from covid in 2020….

I’m going to look at a few of them (twitter won’t let me do a thread long enough to cover them all!)

NB I am not a doctor, I’m a scientist. But I will do my best “Google research” 🤓😉

9/

CARDIAC ARRHYTHMIA
A problem with the rhythm of your heart beat.
Experienced by 2 million people in the UK.
Generally harmless
Most people lead a normal life

Do you think a covid death should be dismissed as a covid death in one of these 2 million people?🤷‍♀️

10/

CEREBROVASCULAR DISEASE

The most common type of cerebrovascular disease is stroke, but includes aneurysms and brain hemorrhages

1.3 million people will have a history of strokes

And remember, these are people who have covid as their Cause of death - not stroke

11/

CHRONIC LOWER RESPIRATORY DISEASE

This covers asthma, COPD, Emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and other lung diseases

12.7 million people in the UK live with these diseases.

Asthma is not even considered a risk factor for covid mortality.

12/

DEMENTIA AND ALZHEIMER’S

Dementia and Alzheimer’s were the leading cause of death in 2019. They accounted for a similar proportion of deaths in 2020.

So if a death cert showed covid was the cause of death, then covid was the cause of death - plenty still died from dementia

13/

DIABETES

Nearly 5 million people in the UK live full and active lives while having diabetes.

@SteveRedgrave5 won 5 Olympic Gold medals with diabetes!

To suggest someone living with diabetes didn’t *really* die of covid is quite frankly, pretty ludicrous.

14/

DISEASES OF THE MUSCULOSKELETAL SYSTEM AND CONNECTIVE TISSUE

Carpal Tunnel, Tendonitis, muscle and ligament sprains, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis.

I don’t need to say anything about the likelihood of a covid death in someone with a sprained ankle being due to that do I?🤦‍♀️

15/

DISEASES OF THE URINARY SYSTEM

While there are more rare diseases affecting the urinary system, cystitis, enlarged prostate and kidney stones also fall under this category.

A covid death in someone who also happens to be suffering from cystitis, is still a covid death.

16/

HEART FAILURE AND COMPLICATIONS OF ILL-DEFINED HEART DISEASE

Nearly 1 million people in the Uk live with heart failure. Half live another 5 years, with almost 1/3 living another 10.

Some may be nearing end of life, but remember, the death cert. gave covid as CAUSE of death.
17/

HYPERTENSIVE DISEASES

This is High blood pressure

How many of your loved ones do you know that suffer from high blood pressure?

If they caught covid, were hospitalized as a result and then died from the infection, would you think it was the blood pressure that killed them?
18/

SYMPTOMS SIGNS AND ILL-DEFINED CONDITIONS

This one is amazing - it includes anything from hiccups to gangrene, “strange and inexplicable behavior” to nervousness, loss of taste to hoarseness….

You can take a look yourself: icd.who.int/browse10/2019/…

19/

In 2021, they also noted a fractured femur in 46 covid deaths and accidental falls in 54 of them.

I don’t think anyone can argue that a fractured femur is somehow the “real cause of death” when a person contracts covid and had covid as the cause of death on their death cert!
20/

Now, you are free to look up the rest yourselves.

And in case you think covid is the only cause of death to have underlying conditions which are there to somehow “rig the numbers”, here are the other conditions mentioned when Ischaemic heart disease is the cause of death

21/

Having multiple health issues mentioned on a death cert. is normal, whatever the cause of death.

No one is trying to inflate covid deaths by pretending that deaths were caused by covid rather than a heart attack. People have continued to die from all other causes too!

22/

So when you hear someone dismiss covid deaths in people with underlying health conditions, remember that most of these conditions are not life threatening, and we know from ICU data that 90% of covid patients in ICU were leading full unassisted lives prior to infection.

23/

I haven’t got enough tweets left to cover the morality, and frankly hideousness of the narrative that if you have an underlying condition, your life is worth less.

These people are our family, our friends, our carers, valuable, meaningful members of our society…

24/

Finally, for a bit of fun, how about a poll?

How many of the “underlying conditions” covered in this thread (and covered in the ONS definitions) do you have?

A particularly nasty example of this misinformation, because it looks so plausible, was this tweet.

He went to the effort of extracting the data from ONS spreadsheets, but then deliberately mislabeled the data and the graph - claiming the ONS referred to them as WITH and FROM 🤬

And here is another, this time using NHS England data

This is even worse - they have included mental health and autism in their list of underlying health conditions.😱

And the figure quoted lumps being over 80 with the pre-existing conditions! 😡