THREAD – “The death rate from COVID is only 0.1%” – Oh no it isn’t

I won’t name and shame, but this fake stat also seems to have been sold to some people. Buyer beware

In what is starting to feel like an advent calendar of fact checking, let’s let in some light…

1/4
This one is simple

Even a basic calculation shows that the death rate must be much higher than 0.1%

With c.65k people having sadly died *from* CV across England & Wales, that would mean 65M had already caught it

There are only 60M of us here

It’s still spreading

2/4
Death registrations have nothing to do with any 28-day cut-off period

A fatal car accident is a fatal car accident

Doctors across the country are not all conspiring to put CV on death certificates

If only we could trace the sources of this stuff 🤔

3/4
Ps – Even if the death rate was “only” 0.1% (which it isn’t), any highly communicable disease which killed 1 in 1,000 people should result in significant research, support and public health action

And then due diligence to review = lessons learned, v important

4/4 - ENDS

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More from @NickStripe_ONS

21 Dec
THREAD – mortality rates

The linked thread addressed fake ONS stats that were circulating

As I made clear in the final tweet, the number of deaths is affected by population size/structure and much more

Thanks for the comments. Some thoughts on rates and context…

1/11
The very best place to start for full context is this report on how our population has changed since 1900

Our population – Where are we? How did we get here? Where are we going?

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

I co-authored it and we published in Mar, which seems a lifetime ago

2/11
Although the no. of deaths registered this year will be similar to 1918, the population is much different – bigger and older

The country is totally different too. Better sanitation & living conditions, antibiotics & universal healthcare, welfare support etc etc

3/11
Read 12 tweets
19 Dec
THREAD – statistical misrepresentation

I have seen the table below being widely shared to falsely imply that deaths are no higher than normal this year

The table is both factually incorrect and misleading

Those who created it deliberately sow confusion and doubt

1/6
Firstly, a common approach used to manipulate statistics is the selective use of dates or time periods

In the table you can see that previous complete years are being compared to a partial year – only going up to week 45 of this year, which ended on 6 Nov

2/6
Secondly, having made it look like official numbers are being used, the wrong number is actually given

There had been 517k deaths registered by 6 Nov this year, not the 485k that are stated in the table

3/6
Read 6 tweets
12 Jun
THREAD – COVID local area and deprivation analysis

Today we have updated our spatial analysis to include all deaths registered and processed so far that occurred from Mar-May

Our interactive local level MSOA map can be found here:

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

1/n
An updated interactive Local Authority map is in section 4 (fig.4) of our report:

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

For both the MSOA and LA maps you can select areas, months, and whether to include all deaths that occurred or only those where COVID was mentioned on death certs

2/n
London had the highest COVID-related age-standardised mortality rate (ASMR) with 137.6 deaths per 100k persons (Mar-May)

This was significantly higher than any other region in Eng and more than a third higher than the region with the next highest rate (the NW)

3/n
Read 12 tweets
9 Jun
THREAD – Deaths registered w/e 29 May (E&W)

This was another bank holiday (Mon 25 May) affected week

As a result, we expected to see a reduction in the number of deaths registered. We also hoped to see a drop in the % that deaths remained above the 5-yr weekly average

1/n
There were 9,824 deaths registered, 20% fewer than the week before

This was 1,653 “excess” deaths above the 5-yr weekly average

= 20% above what we’d expect in this week of the year, down from 24% above the week before

2/n
1,822 deaths mentioned COVID on death certificates, 19% of all deaths registered

As in the week before, this was 110% of the number of excess deaths i.e. slightly more

Deaths not mentioning COVID on death certs were slightly below the 5-yr weekly average

3/n
Read 9 tweets
5 Jun
THREAD – “Non-COVID” excess deaths

Between 7 Mar & 1 May there were 130k deaths registered across E&W

This was 46.4k deaths above 5-yr averages

According to death certs 12.9k (28%) of this “excess” did not mention COVID

98% are now fully coded enabling detailed analysis

1/n
Possible explanations include:

1. COVID was present but undiagnosed, particularly in the presence of other co-morbidities and the absence of a positive test

2. Reluctance to seek care or a delay in receiving care for people with serious health conditions

2/n
3. Reduced hospital capacity affecting ongoing care for people with underlying conditions

4. An increase in stress related causes due to lockdown

5. An increase in death registration efficiency introducing a process effect

3/n
Read 15 tweets
2 Jun
THREAD – Deaths registered w/e 22 May (E&W)

The number of death registrations last week (w/e 15/5) was high as Register Offices caught up following VE Day closures on Fri 8 May

We were subsequently hoping to see a big drop in registrations and “excess” deaths this week

1/9
12,288 deaths were registered in w/e 22 May

A drop of 2,285 (16%) deaths compared to w/e 15 May

But still 2,348 (24%) above the 5-year weekly average of 9,940 deaths

We would normally expect to see this level of weekly death registrations in the middle of winter

2/9
Some regions were further above 5-yr weekly average deaths than others:

The North East was 40% above, the East of England 30%, and Yorkshire & The Humber 29%

Whereas the South West was 8% above and Wales 13%

3/9
Read 9 tweets

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