Scotland: 2021 mortality through week 40 (NRS) 1/ Overall
Actually shocked to see the jump this week, far above the 5 year average
By some margin this was the highest mortality rate of Week 40, in all the history back to 1974.
2/ Excess mortality by cause of death
Deaths with covid remains a significant proportion, but coming dow. By far the majority of excess mortality continued to be non-covid.
3/ Excess mortality by location of death
Deaths at home the main proportion, but as with recent weeks we continue to have excess mortality in hospital (despite lower than normal admissions to hospital), and last week saw for the first time some excess mortality at care home.
4/ Total mortality by age group
Primary excess continues to be in 85+, but sharp rise in 75-84. The 65-74 age group showing smaller excess, and also 45-64 ages.
4b/ Mortality by age - Summer 2021 v’s 2020
This shows cumulative excess mortality of 2021 versus 2020. We continue to see this offset rise by age group, with 85+ sharply inflecting first, then 75-84, then 65-74 a little later etc.
Those trends worsening rather than flattening.
5/ Breakdown of excess mortality
Separating where we see excess mortality, it is
- Primarily ‘Others’, then cancer, circulatory, covid
- Occurring at home
- Higher excess, the higher the age group
6/ Child mortality
We see a huge spike in mortality in the <1 age group for Q4. Note that 2021-Q4 represents only one week (week 40). It was a very high week, tragically 9 infants recorded as passing away, but such peaks happen from time to time.😢
1-14 age group continues normal
7/ Cumulative excess summer mortality by region
Thos shows cumulative excess mortality through the summer, by region. We continue to see the trend of “increasing excess mortality” across the regions
8/ Summer
This shows excess mortality of summer 2021 versus the same period last year.
2020 was normal, even with the week 40 spike overall was +1.2% from the 5 year average).
This year we can see the trend is worse and worse. Now 13.9% above the 5 year average, mortality +2,500
8b/ Summer
To give context to HOW unusual that is, the below shows how each of the last 40 years differed from the 5 year average.
The highest is 3-4%. This summer is +14% deviation, so 3-4x more of a jump than we’ve ever seen before.
Exceptionally unusual trend now.
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Accounting for demographic changes (increased number of elderly, higher average age in each group), Scotland’s mortality in 2023 looks much as we would expect.
Started with a high January (“flu”) than affected older age groups, and now coming down.
85+ quite a normal year
Ages 75-84 were most hit by flu, beyond even the high of 2018. Thus showing as a high year initially, then below average but since has been running the high end of normal range.
A bit elevated, but not especially so.
Ages 65 to 74.
It’s too tricky to calculate the average age in this group (we don’t have death data by individual year), but suspect the average age is going up, hence the trend here has been gently up since 2015. That said this is a slightly high year, driven by January.
Scotland excess mortality through April 2023
Accounting for population size & age by use of ASMR, excess mortality in Scotland is +2.6% year-to-date, a bit lower than 2021, a bit higher than 2022.
What’s more thought provoking is when we step back from numbers to see the trends.
First, by cause.
Mortality was falling in Scotland, but note that abruptly changed with the pandemic & NO recovery since. The angle of increase hasn't slowed
Cancer trend remains improving, circulatory much worse than it was. Dem/Alz looks like misattribution, & C19 cured flu🙄
This is perhaps clearer when we zoom out and see longer term.
See how much mortality was improving, & that has radically changed. Gov are still attributing basically all excess to COVID + Others.
So what did the miracle 💉achieve if excess is unchanged, and C19 is the excess?
All UK nations updated their monthly excess mortality through April. For 2023 to date we see;
1) Scotland (+2.6%)
2) Wales (-0.3%)
3) England (-0.4%)
No ASMR data for N.I.
Overall UK total: +0.7%
‘Excess deaths’ shows hugely different, much higher. Why?
The chart shows monthly excess by ‘excess deaths’ and by ‘ASMR”. We see ‘excess deaths has ALWAYS measured higher than ASMR - this is not new.
The reason is that ASMR measures against the CURRENT population, and ‘excess deaths’ measures against the population 3 years ago.
What IS new is that we are now measuring ‘excess deaths’ against a population not THREE years ago, but almost four years ago.
This is entirely new, and makes ‘excess deaths' even higher. It’s caused by 2020 being dropped from the calculation
This will come back to normal in 2026.
"Beep, beep, beep..."
That's the sound of the reversing alarm, as the narrative is thrown into reverse - "They were never described as preventing transmission". (Actually they were, yet clearly they didn't - as we see from 'cases' data (PCR+) in Scotland. 👇
"But still, robust protection against hospitalisation..."
Er..... in that case Scotland's actual experience on COVID hospitalisations are impossible to explain.
🤔
We've now had equal periods without vaccines (Mar20 until rollout complete in May21) and without vaccines (May21 until now), 63 weeks of each.
We see that despite assurances, ‘acute COVID hospitalisations’ post #sacredcows are 59% higher in the 60+, and 133% higher in under 60s
What we see is;
- More people hospitalised, both <60 (19,000 versus 8,000) and in the'vulnerable' 60 and above (27,000 versus 17,000)
- NO more 'flat' periods where there are no admissions, the rate of admissions is faster than before, and incessant, no breaks
So too ICU - PHS now note "If people test COVID-19 positive on admission to hospital, it may not be the primary reason for admission, and instead an incidental finding"
No 💩 Sherlock, been saying that forever. Look at winter 2020 - 50% of ICU was “Non-COVID19 clinical diagnosis"
Scotland hospital status updated. 1. Do you need an op?
Upper endoscopy waitlist slightly down, but all other endoscopy waiting lists sharply up, and all imaging waitlists (e.g. CT, MRI) hugely up - ultrasound waitlist nearly doubled.
2. You need an op - how is the waitlist?
Chart shows number on the waiting list, and how long they have been waiting. Total continually rising, as well as the proportion waiting 6 months, 12 months, or longer.
3. How are we tackling that list?
This shows the number of operations carried out, in total and by month.
The number has been basically steady since early 2021, not recovering toward prior levels. Running around 33% lower than the pre-COVID levels.