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.

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🙄

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.

"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

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.

Scotland: 2022 mortality, Week 23 (NRS)
scottishunity.org/scotland-morta…
Week 22 was low due to the holiday weekend, this week is therefore a rebound high. Averaging weeks 21, 22, 23 show Scotland right on the 5 year average across those weeks That said, this has been / is the highest period of excess mortality Scotland has ever seen at this time of year, other than the lockdown induced mayhem of 2020.
Looking too at summer 2021, why such anomalous periods of extreme high mortality?

Scotland: 2022 mortality, Week 19 (NRS)
scottishunity.org/scotland-morta…
Last year mortality would look like easing, then next week spike up, continual excess. This year same. Week 19 is +18%, far above what would be expected.
Some details are striking (see below) This overlays 2022 excess with the unprecedented summer 2021 spike. The trend is worse at this point, +1,066 deaths from 5 year average, and higher than at the same point in 2021.
Worrying, this needs to settle, and be investigated.

Scotland: 2022 mortality, Week 18 (NRS)
scottishunity.org/scotland-morta…
Recent elevated mortality dips back into the normal range. Still well in excess overall, and looking worryingly similar to last summer trend (see next tweet).
Hopefully should settle This shows the cumulative trend, this spike relative to last summer’s. You can see tracking very similar, but actually slightly more severe over the same period of time.

Mmm, quite a few thoughts
If we look year-to-date in comparison to prior years, we can see (a) the only significant variant is male infants, and (b) even that is at numbers we have seen in the past - it's not uncharted ground.

https://twitter.com/biologyphenom/status/1524370208969875457

Then if we see the mortality trend of age 1-14 (excluding <1 y.o.), females look rather low, and males are high end of normal, behind 2015 and 2016

PHS updated dataset on emergency ambulance cardiac events - this is age group 15 to 44, others below.
Are the media just not going to talk about this? The correlation is so exceptional it's hard work NOT to see it.
What do experts like @DrAseemMalhotra & @FatEmperor make of it? Age group 45 to 64

Scotland: 2022 mortality, Week 17 (NRS)
scottishunity.org/scotland-morta…
Worringly similar to what we saw in 2021 - mortality went excess, then rose and rose, ending in the worst summer excess Scotland has ever seen. Same pattern here - hope it settles soon This shows the weekly percentage excess. Summer 2021 stands out - 32 weeks of excess - and the small insert chart shows the current trend overlaid on that.

Scotland: 2022 mortality, Week 12 (NRS)
In summer 2021 we saw an unprecedented spike in all cause mortality which started 12-14 weeks after the peak of Dose 2. Applying that to the ‘Booster’, mortality would change Week 9-11.
And it has. Early days - see if this is a trend... Excess mortality by cause of death and by location of death.

Scotland: 2022 mortality, Week 11 (NRS)
scottishunity.org/scotland-morta…
Week 10 revised up, and Week 11 slightly above the 5yr average amid a rising line. 4 weeks is not a trend, but should be downward in this period of the year.
Overall fine, but keep watching. The step up in Week 11 was excess deaths at home, and the causes were ‘Others’, and Circulatory (heart attack, stroke), with some Respiratory

1/
A couple of weeks ago PHS stopped publishing covid data by vaccination status, when it no longer supported the narrative they were making. (Hint: Data don’t do that, they just show what is happening)
Today the report had a bit of a foot stamp about the issue 2/
If we're honest with data we would be fascinated to see what kind of a difference when 'asymptomatic cases' (healthy people) are no longer being counted as 'cases'. Indeed worrying if the trend changed with their exclusion.
Data are only data when they support the narrative?

Scotland: 2022 mortality, Week 8 (NRS)
scottishunity.org/scotland-morta…
Overall mortality continues to run below normal. That is eldest age groups are below normal, and 45-64 is the last one continuing with excess. Almost identical to early 2020 levels By cause: ‘Others’ elevated, and main causes all below normal. Somehow we have ‘covid deaths’ but overall Respiratory has been normal since Christmas. Misattribution?
By location: Excess at home, same pattern since March 2020.

PHS data of covid risk
1/ Raw numbers
Trends are very clear. 70% of covid deaths were in those people who’d had three doses to prevent the thing that it is reported they died from
(actually ‘with’ but since that has been the sleight of hand throughout this we’ll stick with it) 2/ Risk by population
Adjusted for population shows no difference in ‘case’ risk (risk to test positive), very slight difference in hospital risk (risk to test positive on arriving at hospital for any reason), and much higher risk for covid mortality (death within 28 days…etc)

Scotland: 2022 mortality, Week 6 (NRS)
scottishunity.org/scotland-morta…
Nothing has happened in Scotland that exceeds what we’ve seen in the past. We see a ‘lockdown’ spike in 2020, and an equally sized but unexplained spike in Autumn 2021.
2022 has started normally, like 2020 and 2021 Total mortality by cause.
a) Overall still running below the 5yr average
b) Vaccinated make up >85% of covid deaths
c) ‘Booster’ now make up 70% of covid deaths

Public Health Scotland - covid data
Booster proportion continues to rise rapidly - a higher proportion of cases, hospital admissions and ‘covid deaths’ than the proportion of the population
Maybe #TheDrugsDontWork ? “But we have to look at population"
Okay, same data by rate. Compared to unvacinated, booster is
- 30% more likely to ‘catch covid’ (test positive)
- 20% less likely to be hospitalised
- but 70% more likely to be a covid death

Scotland: 2022 mortality, Week 4 (NRS)
scottishunity.org/scotland-morta…
Although mortality is keeping the high level (25 per 100k), it’s good to see keeping within the normal range / below average, after such extraordinary excess through summer 2021 Same data but shown by cause, with ‘covid mortality’ split by vaccination status. 83% of ‘deaths with covid’ vaccinated, and more majority now becoming ‘boosted'

COVID mortality, 4 ways.
1/ PHS published their weekly report, one of the datasets is ‘covid deaths’ over the last 4 weeks. What could be simpler?
The raw numbers look like this. We can see double-vaccinated is highest, and ‘Booster’ 50% lower. 2/ The raw data fails to account for the population numbers of each - so we can divide deaths by population, to get a mortality rise for each cohort.
Booster is largest population, and risk looks lower, 75% down. Unvaccinated notably lower risk than 1 or 2 dose