Scotland: 2021 mortality through week 43 (NRS) 1/ Overall
Yet another really high week.
Week 42 was revised up to being +25% from the 5yr average, and this week is +26% (+272 additional deaths). 23rd consecutive week of excess - the longest bad streak on record.
2/ Excess by cause
The majority continues to be non-covid as we’ve been seeing since the start of summer, but ‘covid deaths’ (death by any cause within 28 days of a positive test) making up a sizeable amount, as has been the case recently
2b/ Excess by cause
Breaking this down, we see weekly and cumulative excess for each cause.
Several notable points, especially sharp inflection in heart/stroke from a pre-summer plateau.
3a/ Excess by location of death
Excess mortality continues mainly at home, however hospital has gone from a negative (below normal) to a consistent weekly exess.
3b/ Excess by location of death
This perhaps shows more clearly, weekly and cumulative by location.
Hospital was always negative, until around week 13 when the trend reversed and has grown ever since.
(Note all scales are the same, for comparison)
4a/ Total mortality by age group
The 15-44 age group remains stable, but all others continue to be higher than the 5 year average
4b/ Cumulative summer excess by age group
We continue to see the ‘staged’ ramped up of excess mortality, eldest rising first, then next eldest and so on.
45-64 shows a flattening, but only one week so need to see trend. 15-44 on 5 year average
4c/ Weekly and Cumulative excess by age group
This shows the weekly and cumulative excess for each age group, both this year and 2021.
(Note scales are different for each, which can compress differences)
4d/ Cumulative excess by 5 year age band - 2020 and 2021 versus five year average
Like the previous, but broken down more finely. Notably several age groups are (a) higher excess than 2020, and (b) rising trend in *summer*. Very unusual.
5/ Excess summer mortality in Scotland
This summarises the excess seen through summer, which is;
- Primarily ‘Others’ (73% non-respiratory/covid)
- Almost exclusively at home (hospital now rising)
- Higher the age, higher the excess
6/ Total mortality and vaccination doses, by week
7a/ Child mortality (1-14 years)
Quite normal here, running at the same level as 2020, and both below the five year average.
7b/ Child mortality (<1 years)
We need to be careful with the 2021-Q4 average as it is an average of only four weeks, but even the weekly moving average (solid orange line) has been a bit elevated since early summer.
Birthrate has been higher which may explain. But, a little high
8/ Excess mortality, by region
Looking at this by region to see if any differing trends geographically. They continue to trend up, although Lothian now flattened off for three weeks, which is positive.
9/ Summer mortality
Summer 2020 was +1.2% from 5yr average. This summer is 14.8% above, 3,178 higher deaths than would be expected. The trend is also worsening.
9b/ Here’s how that looks for the past 40 years. Each year has deviated from the norm, but typically +3 to -5%. This summer at 14.8% increase is a very unusual event.
9c/ Cumulative summer excess
Here we see that trended week by week, and the trend continues to worse (continued / higher deviation from the 5 year average) rather than flattening off.
2020 is the dashed red line, mid to upper end of the years.
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Scotland: 2021 mortality through week 42 (NRS) 1/ Overall
Again a very high week, +252 from the 5 year average, which is 24% excess. Now 22 consecutive weeks of excess mortality, but also where i) it’s summer, and ii) the trend is still elevating.
(2020 included for reference)
1b/ Overall
For context this shows ‘winter mortality’ (weeks 27-42) of each of the last 30 years, ranked. This year 2021-22 is the worst position we’ve seen up until this time of year.
1c/ Overall
Another way to view, is annualising the weekly numbers - this would normally rise into winter, then settle down, with between 0.99% and 1.19% sadly passing away each year.
This 2021-22 period through week 42 is highest, & trending away from the others (getting worse)
Scotland: 2021 mortality through week 41 (NRS) 1/ Overall
Sadly another high week. Week 40 was revised up (+32% from 5yr), and week 41 was +23%.
Having been below normal in spring, now 21 consecutive weeks not only above the 5 year average, but ever higher above.
2/ Rank
With data context is always critical, and we should be clear neither this (nor indeed 2020) are anything not experienced before. 2021 to date ranks 11th in mortality rate in even the past 30 years. The key is the big rise from last summer.
(No need to mention the 90s!)
3/ Excess mortality by cause
‘Deaths within 28 days of a positive test’ continues to make up a notable proportion of the excess, albeit less than 50%. Those numbers - both total excess and 'with covid’ - are far higher than the corresponding period last year.
Scotland, PHS Weekly COVID report
Others cover this report so we don’t post much on it, but it is a really interesting resource, and thanks to PHS for bringing it together.
Wanted to put a few observations out there taken up to and including the latest report.
1/ Overall trend
‘Cases’ are heavily skewed by who is tested, but even so cases are now >50% in vaccinated population.
‘Acute covid hospital admissions’ also now >70% vaccinated, and trend *very* clear.
‘Deaths with covid’ remains >80% fully vaccinated
2/ Acute covid hospitalisation
This is key, as the main focus of the vaccine.
Below summarised the *fully* vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, and the hospital admissions from each.
Unvaccinated risk is 1 in 406, and fully vaccinated is 1 in 607.
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.
Scotland: 2021 mortality through week 39 (NRS) 1/ Overall
Week 39 not only in excess of 5 year average, but in keeping with recent weeks it is above the max range of the last 20 years.
Now 19 consecutive weeks of above average mortality in Scotland.
2/ Excess mortality by cause
Showing now as a little more than half of the excess is covid, although that proportion coming down. Mortality classed as covid is nearly 3x higher than summer 2020.
3/ Excess mortality by location
Again this week some excess in hospital, but by far predominantly remains excess mortality at home. Through summer this has been about 1,800 deaths higher than normal.
Scotland: Mortality week 29 (NRS data)
Last few weeks have been above the average, and this week 29 sets a new high, by a small margin the highest week 29 for more than 20 years.
Mortality rank
2021 rank has moved slightly higher, but still 15th. Now higher (worse) than 2015 and 2018, which we have been below so far.
Note 2020 now ranks third, behind the dreadful 1993 and 1999 that we all remember…?
3/ Excess mortality by cause
This breaks down cause into covid and non-covid. We can see that we continue to have significant non-covid excess, and some excess as covid now creeping in.
Will come back to this.