Based on a full year’s comparable data, the US overtook the UK as the worst hit G7 country in terms of pandemic excess deaths... when we first did this analysis with @HealthFdn for the first wave last June, UK was by some way worst. US now hardest hit alongside UK & Italy.
percentage measure above includes some allowance for the demographic trend in calculating the expected levels of death over past year... this below is a cruder measure using a 5 year average of G7 deaths, but is the same way we calculated it for first wave - US the big change..
Full Story:
These international comparisons throw up some v important questions...
For context best performers - Japan, canada, & Germany, have lower levels of per capita excess deaths over full year, than UK had in the first wave alone... @HealthFdn
Looking at the evolution of the pandemic waves across the G7 is very interesting...
It shows why the US leapfrogged the UK, - between the peaks, US deaths did not drop back to zero, they remained at an elevated rate, this could reflect different policies by state on lockdowns.
Another interesting perhaps telling detail in the data is that the worst hit G7 nations by pandemic excess deaths, match almost exactly in order the ones then best at rolling out full vaccinations... ie US and UK, top of the tree, Japan etc bottom (ac to OWID)
Questions that arise from comparative G7 data here:
1. Why Germany, Canada, Japan did so well in suppressing? 2. Why US record in last half of 2020 was so bad 3. How Italy, despite having least notice, still ended up doing better than US/UK 4. Just why UK wave 1 was so bad
Shadow Chancellor Jeremy Hunt acknowledges to @bbclaurak when asked if Conservatives had won whether there would have been tax cuts in Autumn that “we wouldn’t have been able to do it immediately, no”
…
most notable thing re: Chancellor interview with Laura is this unusual Treasury analysis due in next fortnight which will “look at the state of the public services, the state of the public finances…public spending pressures we are under”
Q: why isnt the OBR doing this?
While fiscally eventful, it is not going to be a “fiscal event”… when first announced by Chancellor on her first Monday in office it sounded more like an audit of stalled spending and impact on public services, than an audit of the public finances…
Reassuringly, @demishassabis tells Blair at the @InstituteGC conference that Artificial Intelligence is only at the IQ level of a cat right now.. [although that is changing rapidly - surely will exceed humans in many tasks in this Parliament] 🐈⬛
Interesting to think Blair as PM famously never used his computer, or rarely did so…
Also has the scars, as it were, from that failed NHS IT contract… if only that had succeeded…
Interesting to know if this Govt is conscious of the ghosts of that and of botched PFI deals.
Chancellor’s Mais lecture did have sense of learning from some setbacks during the Blair era … havent seen a good analysis tho of where eg record on PFI and the NHS IT contract [perhaps Horizon too] forms part of this govt’s memory.
Coutinho co-opting the Treasury Permanent Secretary into backing idea that Labour will raise taxes by thousands…
All this arises because the OBR (unlike its equivalent in Ireland, Australia the US, the CBO) is prevented from doing comparable truly independent costings…
This whole “debate” is, for now, rather absurd, as next week we will get the actual policies in manifestos, the parties’ own assumptions and separate truly independent numbers on the implications for tax, spend & borrowing from the likes of the IFS & Niesr.
The Treasury Permanent Secretary who Coutinho deployed this morning to defend the £38bn/ £2k claim wrote to the Opposition to say it “should not be presented as having been produced by civil service”… this could be problematic…
Looks like a major “announcement” on energy bills is imminent … another @politicalpics long lens scoop… Big Six have been briefed … something to do with the energy price cap adjustment (cut) from July (coming by Friday), further policy on smart meters (rollout has stalled)
”Note we do not necessarily want their advocacy as consumer trust is so low in suppliers that if a package of this kind is backed by them then consumers will instinctively regard it as not in their best interests” the memo says of the Big Six energy providers
Logically, some sort of announcement that builds on the inflation fall (energy driven) on Wednesday and the further fall in the cap on Friday, to promote the idea that the cost of living crisis is behind us, but something not all the energy companies will back - perhaps rolling back some of the green additions ???
1 in 4 Scottish adults on anti-depressants doctor just told Amol on @BBCr4today re inactivity…
Can’t find directly comparable England stat … but NHS England business data says there were 8.6m patients prescribed antidepressants in 22/23 (up from 6.8m in 2015)… 19% of adults
Thanks followers - the doc did say 1 in 5, and the fact is here from NHS business data … 8.6m antidepressant prescriptions out of an adult population of 45 million… 5.6m women, 2.9m men. Up from 2015 6.8m prescriptions/ 43m population… (1 in 6)
these numbers seem astonishing.
By age
English children on prescribed antidepressants, including a handful of toddlers - big spike up is for teenage girls…
1. Leading African figures told me privately that Kagame’s clear frustration with the UK-Rwanda deal, communicated to me “it’s UK’s problem” & “have money back” also reflect eyebrows being raised in other African nations about general look for a man who likes to be seen as the modern leader of a confident Africa, and who may have clocked that it may be reversing his considerable investments in nation-branding (sponsoring PL footy teams) etc. Watch this space. Here’s my iPhone video…
2. Remember, there are two sides to this deal:
I got a note from a very connected commentator after my doorstep: “It's a really bad look for him. He knows that the whole point of this policy is to make the UK govt look tough on migrants, on the grounds that Rwanda is presumptively a terrible place to be sent to. It puts the Rwanda country brand back like 20 years. … the only thing people associate with the country is "the worst place the Brits can think to send people"….
Context here - some real buzz about Africa jumping value chains, not just producing minerals but the finished products the world needs and doing so within a massive new free trade area…
3. Heard an interesting theory from business leader Brits out here… the autumn election promise is a feint, and earlier (May?) will happen as a result of the “shock” of the ECHR (possibly?) quashing the Rwanda policy and fought on that basis, with an attempt to reenergise Brexit vibes… if that’s even half true… then worth noting that Ireland has just formally lodged its ECHR case against the UK on Troubles Legacy Act… oh… and coming up imminently on @BBCNews is my interview with the Taoiseach covering this topic…