An Update on Deaths as of 29th September 2021

Hello Friends!

This is just a quick update on the data as of last week. The next update comes from National Records for Scotland tomorrow, but I never know when I’ll get the time! I’ll put a wee video up too on Inform Scotland YouTube.

As you can see, last week’s report showed the 17th consecutive week of excess death from all causes. This is pretty horrifying. Even last year, during the second wave of Covid-19, during the winter (!), we didn’t have as much excess death as we have had this summer. The trend is a slow upwards one. I am not comfortable with it. I do not think it bodes well for winter. Our excess death, you will see, also exceeds, in Week 37 of this year, the peak we saw during the autumn second wave epidemic of Covid-19 in week 47. This is alarming.

The next two smaller graphs attached to this one show how Covid-19 deaths have contributed to excess. It is very clear indeed that Covid-19 deaths could be said to be accounting for the excess in 2020. In fact, I analysed the data at the time and questioned whether in fact other causes of death were in fact being effectively swapped for Covid-19 deaths. The blog is on this website if you are interested – I was making an argument, not stating a position particularly, and I do think some of the points I made have been shown to be the true nature of what was going on last year. But the point here is that in 2021, for the first half of the year so far, Covid-19 deaths actually exceeded excess, which is fairly strange. It means that we were seeing other causes of death occurring much less frequently than normal, which is in fact highly suggestive that Covid-19 was being misattributed to at least some deaths. However, in the second half of this year, excess is exceeding Covid-19 deaths. This is telling us very clearly that now people are dying more than usual of other causes, even as Covid-19 deaths become less common. The restrictions on life and our normal structures there to keep us safe are starting to take their toll. I personally am expecting to see some pretty horrendous excess death this year.

You may remind me of this statement when I have been proved wrong and I will very gladly take correction.

Respiratory deaths have been extremely low all through 2020. This is a real mystery (and again shows that to at least some extent Covid-19 simply replaced other causes of death OR was misdiagnosed) but you can see in recent weeks it has come back up again to more normal levels and we have again no deficit in this cause of death. Circulatory deaths look to be rising and Other causes are very high just now. In general, all these causes are showing a rising trend; it is concerning to anyone paying attention.

Looking at EXCESS deaths by setting, deaths in the home have been consistently high since the start of 2020. This is an incredible trend. But this year is very comparable to last year. Care home deaths have actually been pretty ordinary over the course of the years 2020 and 2021, except during the Spring 2020 peak, obviously. Overall throughout the whole of the two years, there has been only a small excess deaths total in care homes. So far this year, we are at a deficit of 1043. This means care home deaths have actually been very low this year. In 2020, there was an excess of 2104 in care homes. The big change has been in hospitals. Last year, they were emptied and so deaths in hospital were much lower than normal, and just now there is an excess, but it looks very different to last year.

Covid-19 deaths are all happening in hospital, basically. This is actually quite a change.

Stay tuned ?

Stay sane ?

Stay strong ?

Lots of love! ❤

Christine x