Statbel released its 2022 deaths by cause for Belgium (speed is not the essence)

Despite having asked to "report deaths even if covid only suspected", covid deaths Sciensano during the pandemic are 20% resp 40% lower than the actual deaths due to covid in Wallonia and Flanders Early in the pandemic, Belgium did something I still consider best in class

It instructed its medics to report any deaths which was only possibly covid, e.g. a person dies with covid in a home and suddenly 6 others die without test within days)

2/

This tweet is a masterpiece of "writing to effect"

The statements on LC made by this Lab attracted much attention

Let go through them by adding the figs as they are known from the UK, the ONLY place in the world with a clue on its infx and potential LC

Hint: There is much spin

https://twitter.com/PutrinoLab/status/1831314028062261308

STATEMENT 1: "incurable chronic disease"

This is technically correct: You can not take a drug and make it go away, there is only hope and prayers

BUT

1/

Australia released its mortality data up to April 24

So far, 2024 is
- in line with the expectations from the Mortality Working Group when including pandemic years
- 5% above those from pre-pandemic trends (of which roughly half is directly attributable to covid)

1/ I still believe that a large part of the "unexplained" excess against pre-pandemic trends is actually just a "shift forward of the annual curves" from pink to blue (due to changes in immunity structures and covid being more contagious)

2/

Through its infection and Long Covid survey, ONS provides everything needed for ballpark estimates on the current situation for the 16-64

Risk of developing condition end 2023
Overall: ~1.5%
Severe: ~0.3%

% of pop with condition end 2023
Overall ~3%
Severe ~0.5%

Details below Everything comes out of the ONS winter infection survey

It is based on a random sample of the population which
/ got tested every week
/ self reported LC by
a) severity
b) when it started (less than 12 weeks ago, 12-53 weeks ago, etc.)

1/

Source: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

England and Germany have periodic randomized infection surveys which allows to estimate the average duration between infections

By inferring the missing data (more below), it looks as if the duration has remained roughly unchanged over the last year in England, at ~1.5 years The analysis is made more complex by the fact that the periodic infection surveys
- only started late in Germany
- was interrupted in England
(NL also has a survey but it is not randomized)

So one needs to "complete the data" to get an annual view and have a sense of the trend

Here is the annual overview of weekly ASMR in western Europe

Netherlands is the only country which did not see significantly reduced mortality rates in 2023

and it is due to its 65+ and not its <65 and it should be a HUGE attention point for @rivm and @statisticscbs

THREAD⤵️ @rivm @statisticscbs Just to hammer home how much NLD is on another planet: Here is the annual growth rate of ASMR in Western Europe

Only one country goes up in 2023: Yep, NLD...

(I added a high value for the missing 2023w52 data to have full year for SWE and clearly also its ASMR will be down)

1/

NZE is the only country in the world with high vax, good death data and vax happening before and not in parallel with covid

It saw no excess in the<60, which is not attributable to covid

This de facto kills any claim of high vax deaths made elsewhere, let me explain⤵️ Just for clarity, I think it's vital to check for signals of covid vaccine induced deaths simply because there is risk eg
- intrinsic risk of novelty (of mRNA vaccines) even if the biology looks safe
- the appalling transparency record of pharma when things go wrong

1/

I continue to see talks of high unexplained excess deaths in England and Wales in S1 2023

This is NOT confirmed by data by occurrence date and is an artefact resulting from
/ reporting by registration date
/ policy of only registering deaths once cause is assigned

THREAD Just to make my point crystal clear

The S1 2023 deaths by registration date excl covid are POSITIVE and high which signals lots of unexplained deaths

Yet, when using deaths by occurrence date (as one should), the same total is NEGATIVE. So in fact no/few unexplained deaths

1/

This paper making the rounds at the moment claims that "excess deaths started in Mar 2021 in GER and is unlikely to come from covid but matches vaccines"

It is rigged with issues which basically invalidate its claim

Let me go through the major ones⤵️

cureus.com/articles/14941… The key issue is that the authors did not take info account that in the absence of flu the winter peak will be displaced

Once you correct for this, excess deaths match covid deaths in 2021

1/

https://twitter.com/Jean__Fisch/status/1625808599590088706

Scotland has been reporting continues excess deaths (and this beyond covid) since November, even after corrections for mortality and population trend

However, the data by registration date is a bit misleading and a look at data by occurrence provides better insights ⤵️ Scotland provides data by occurrence by age on a monthly basis which allows one to make a proper assessement against expected deaths from population and mortality trends

And what comes through is that there are TWO periods of excess: "Xmas 22" and "Mar-Apr 23"

1/

This is actually quite insightful and shows how prior beliefs blurs and distorts the situation

Natural immunity was absolutely not divisive: It's value was clear but no gov was prepared to accept the costs associated with it until vaccines came

1/5

https://twitter.com/MaryanneDemasi/status/1656806361844572160

In particular, the impact of an "R0=2.5 / IFR >>0.5%" virus is such that no shielding mecanisms was deemed sufficiently secure to let circulation run high without taking uncalculated risks on the death toll

(here a little check I did a while back)

2/5

https://twitter.com/Jean__Fisch/status/1564237261851467776

Vaccine harm deserves better than the deplorable show that vaccine sceptics are offering so here an update of fatality from Germany (up to April 2022):

The death rate due to covid vaccination was at roughly 1.8 deaths per million doses administrated in early 2022 Quick add ons to forecome obvious questions

/ No need to remind me that, just as with long covid, fatality is not everything (I know): I could not find hospitalizations or sequels data

/ Unfortunately, the German monthly death data by cause is not split by age

While Dr. Gupta's claim that new Danish data vindicated her low estimation of IFR in Mar '20 is incorrect, I still wondered how this estimate came about

This interview provides answers and highlights once more IFR's key role in a pandemic response ⤵️

From the interview, it is clear that Dr. Gupta’s low IFR estimate back in 2020 came from a set of considerations which reinforced each other

1) Covid-19 is a SARS virus and the world had been exposed to SARS before
-> Some immunity was there possible / likely

1/N

In this @unherd column, @SunetraGupta asks the Q: "how wrong was I to suggest that average IFR was 0.05-0.10% back in 2020?"

The answer is
- "By a factor of 5-10 for DNK" (per official data)
- "By a factor 5-25 overall" if UK is anything to go by

It's quite simple really ⤵️

https://twitter.com/unherd/status/1643335134848995339

@unherd @SunetraGupta @DSTdk official 2020 death toll "FOR COVID" is 1,078

Source: dst.dk/en/Statistik/e…

@SSI_dk studies put covid prevalenced at 4.1% in Dec 2020

Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34420152/

So the IFR in DNK in 2020 was 1,078/5,8m/0.04% = ~0,45%

ie "5-10x higher than 0.05-0.1%"

1/3

Interesting data came out today from Denmark, where @SSI_dk released cumulative covid deaths "for covid" (according to death register) by age bracket under a FOIR

How does this compare with Sweden? Well it is 3 times lower ... almost across the age board

A QUICK WALK THROUGH

https://twitter.com/FSBuchholzer/status/1642665771863080960

@SSI_dk Sweden provides its deaths "due to covid" on a weekly basis as well as cumulative covid deaths due to covid by age band

Denmark does only provide weekly deaths "with covid" as well as a chart (no data) with death "for covid" but no data by age band for covid

1/7

When I saw this study claiming that LC was no more prevalent in covid positive than negative, my immediate reaction was "isn't its CI too wide for measuring anything relevant given that LC is a 1%-ish factor?"

Turns out the answer is yes, ie the study is useless by design

1/3

https://twitter.com/OmicronData/status/1642439742003326977

Why useless? Imagine if I look at the sky through my beer bottle and I don't see Jupiter. What would you do with my paper "I find no statistical evidence that Jupiter exists"?

This may be layering it a bit thick but, in essence, this is what happened here ...

2/3

I showed yesterday that the "bottom sealing" of 1.5% positivity is roughly a baseline of reinfections every 2-3 yrs

Of course, the current average time is shorter as average positivity was higher in 2022

In fact, I realized that ONS' data allows to put a lower bound on it

1/5

https://twitter.com/Jean__Fisch/status/1639669699502809089

In its report on characteristics of infections in its survey, it provides weekly reinfection rates among participants and the reinfection rate among 100,000 participants days at risk

2/5

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

I was always intrigued by what led Sweden to follow its path at the beginning of the pandemic and never really came to analyse it

So I shared this and got lots of superb material! It allowed me to develop a clearer picture of what happened back then not only SE but overall⤵️

https://twitter.com/Jean__Fisch/status/1635588029795401728

First a clarification, an apology and a request:

/ I only covered here the initial decision-making in March 2020

/ Despite this focus, this is a long and waffly thread

/ The conclusion may not be what it seems so please read until the end before reacting

1/

The full deaths for all causes data for 2022 is out for Italy (in fact up to end January) and what stands out is the big bulk of covid deaths from Oct 2020 to Apr 2021

The reason for this is that, actually, that Italy was mostly hit in autumn-winter 2020-2021

1/N "Wait Jean", I hear you think behind your screens, "surely you are talking of a different Italy ... remember Lombardia?"

Indeed, Lombardia got hit ultra-hard in spring 2020

2/N

I see that the US press is full of the increase of mortality linked to birth and pregnancy

A look at data by region shows that IT CANNOT BE THE VACCINES

If it were, we would not see the peak only in the south and not elsewhere

I am not finished: It is clearly covid

1/2

https://twitter.com/jeffreyatucker/status/1636423338162638848

Look at the deaths for females<35:

/ The ONLY region to have a peak during Delta is the south
/ This peak coincides EXACTLY with the peak of deaths linked to pregnancy/birth in the south

So, in fact, the peak of deaths during pregnancy/birth are mislabelled covid deaths

2/2

Remember my mystery? What did the East South Central Division in the US seemingly see much lower deaths related to childbirth and pregnancy to its two neighbours despite similar covid exposure?

Well, I think I have the answer ... and even a bit more ⤵️

https://twitter.com/Jean__Fisch/status/1635247278528278529

First the answer: The reason there was a big difference was ... optical. Once you work with rates, it disappears

In fact, all three Divisions in the South region in the US saw a quite similar spike of pregnancy / birth deaths in the summer of 21

1/4