Prevalence of England deaths is far higher than relative populations of UK’s constituent nations, damning Johnson’s handling of crisis
The government’s decision to abandon its daily coronavirus press briefings – while deaths and infections are still significant – has allowed it to escape even the feeble scrutiny of the corporate media over its handling of the crisis.
But it is still forced to publish statistics – and those for the last four days, since the briefings ended – are damning of Boris Johnson’s and Matt Hancock’s recklessness. Those four days have seen England suffer 95% of coronavirus deaths – far higher than its 85% of the UK population should see.
The figures for individual days are no less damning – and suggest England’s disaster is worsening:
23 June
England 161 (94%)
Scotland 4
Wales 5
Northern Ireland 1
24 June
England 141 (92%)
Scotland 4
Wales 8
Northern Ireland 1
25 June
England 141 (95%)
Scotland 2
Wales 6
Northern Ireland 0
26 June
England 183 (98%)
Scotland 0
Wales 2
Northern Ireland 1
Of the total of 660 deaths in those four days, England has suffered 626 – or 94.85%, Scotland 1.52% (vs 8% of UK population), Wales 3.18% (vs 4.8% of population), Northern Ireland 0.45% (vs 2.9% of population).
Boris Johnson has been accused of causing three-quarters of England’s coronavirus deaths by his arrogance, mishandling and delayed lockdown. England’s statistics compared to the UK’s other nations continue to suggest that he is fuelling a huge toll of needless deaths – and his haste to lift the lockdown is set to turbocharge it.
But none of this will now be seen by the public in the televised briefings.
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How many of those fatalities are over 70, how many of those had 2 or more primary illnesses, how many of those actually died from Covid-19 as a number of frontline NHS doctors have stated they have been signing cause of death certificates as Covid-19 when they have not even been tested for it.
How many of those fatalities were caused by not having operations that have been delayed by this lockdown, how many of the fatalities were caused by people not going to A&E because of fear of the virus, how many are old single people incarcerated in their own homes because of the lockdown?????
It’s another of SB’s “Doh!” articles based on Mystic Mog science.
England has always had higher deaths than any of the other constituent countries (but even that isn’t uniform – have a look at the low figures for the South-West region). Countries vary for a myriad of reasons, and the best analysis shows that government interventions are a minor part of that variation in terms of infections and mortality
What’s fascinating is how glibly the *main* and obvious feature of Tory policy – the imposition of unjustified totalitarian measures and their consequences – is simply accepted, even encouraged, here, whilst a gut is busted trying to link unrelated issues to Bojo and Co. on the basis of pure speculation, not evidence or association, which latter is – as a slim acquaintance with the Idiot’s guide to scientific method would establish – not the same as correlation.
And – of course – we have the underlying fact that (particularly in a two-year frame) deaths have not been startlingly high.
Reading these sort of articles is like listening to a niche summary version of the Beeb and Guardian output.
Who gives a fuck what pre-existing health problems they had? Why are you putting emphasis on that? When all’s said & done those poor sods are dead. Forever.
But as I’ve previously said – you do an awful lot of cheerleading for this government’s approach, but you don’t seem willing to put yourself in harm’s way. Neither you nor dicky.
Why is that?
NONE of those fatalities were caused by not having operations, not going to A&E or being “incarcerated in their own homes” – those are the CORONAVIRUS death numbers.
You seriously believe only 2 people in Wales and 1 in NI died yesterday?
What EXACTLY is the number of frontline NHS doctors who’ve “stated they have been signing cause of death certificates as Covid-19 when they have not even been tested for it” – what is the source of that information and is it from before or since the test became available?
Just a dated link will do.
I ask because I’ve only read of two, they were from before there WAS a test, and if it was commonplace there’d be FAR more.
I’ve read of other doctors having claimed they were instructed NOT to give CV as a cause of death in the early weeks when people showing the known symptoms started dying.
Symptoms and history are often all that’s available to doctors in determining cause of death.
If you look at the data concerning Covid19 from the NHS , for example, you will notice two obvious points 1. The median age of the fatalities is approximately 80 years old 2. 95% of the fatalities had two or more comorbidities eg cancer, heart problems etc. 3. Cancer is divided into approximately 4 stages 1-4. People can very quickly, depending on the type of cancer eg small or large cell or whether it’s an aggressive type of cancer you jump from. stage 2 to 3 or 4 and effect there chances of survival. In addition, the NHS A&E are down by about 900,000 from last year, the reasons given is for example, the fear of going there which can lead to more serious complications. It’s happened before, eg developing blood poisoning or a myriad of other accidents or symptoms which people have ignored.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/26/more-than-two-million-operations-cancelled-as-nhs-fights-covid-19
From the 28th May 2020
As an NHS doctor, I’ve seen people die and be listed as a victim of coronavirus without ever being tested for it. But unless we have accurate data, we won’t know which has killed more: the disease or the lockdown?
I suppose most people would be somewhat surprised to know that the cause of death, as written on death certificates, is often little more than an educated guess. Most people die when they are old, often over eighty. There is very rarely going to be a post-mortem carried out, which means that, as a doctor, you have a think about the patient’s symptoms in the last two weeks of life or so. You go back over the notes to look for existing medical conditions.
Previous stroke, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, angina, dementia and suchlike. Then you talk to the relatives and carers and try to find out what they saw. Did they struggle for breath, were they gradually going downhill, not eating or drinking?
If I saw them in the last two weeks of life, what do I think was the most likely cause of death? There are, of course, other factors. Did they fall, did they break a leg and have an operation – in which case a post-mortem would more likely be carried out to find out if the operation was a cause.
Mostly, however, out in the community, death certification is certainly not an exact science. Never was, never will be. It’s true that things are somewhat more accurate in hospitals, where there are more tests and scans, and suchlike.
Then, along comes Covid-19, and many of the rules – such as they were – went straight out the window. At one point, it was even suggested that relatives could fill in death certificates, if no-one else was available. Though I am not sure this ever happened.
What were we now supposed to do? If an elderly person died in a care home, or at home, did they die of Covid-19? Well, frankly, who knows? Especially if they didn’t have a test for Covid-19 – which for several weeks was not even allowed. Only patients entering hospital were deemed worthy of a test. No-one else.
What advice was given? It varied throughout the country, and from coroner to coroner – and from day to day. Was every person in a care home now to be diagnosed as dying of the coronavirus ? Well, that was certainly the advice given in several parts of the UK.
Where I work, things were left more open. I discussed things with colleagues and there was very little consensus. I put Covid-19 on a couple of certificates, and not on a couple of others. Based on how the person seemed to die.
I do know that other doctors put down Covid-19 on anyone who died from early March onwards. I didn’t. What can be made of the statistics created from data like these? And does it matter?
It matters greatly for two main reasons. First, if we vastly overestimate deaths from Covid-19, we will greatly underestimate the harm caused by the lockdown. This issue was looked at in a recent article published in the BMJ, The British Medical Journal. It stated:
“Only a third of the excess deaths seen in the community in England and Wales can be explained by Covid-19.
…David Spiegelhalter, chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said that Covid-19 did not explain the high number of deaths taking place in the community.”
“At a briefing hosted by the Science Media Centre on May 12 he explained that, over the past five weeks, care homes and other community settings had had to deal with a ‘staggering burden’ of 30,000 more deaths than would normally be expected, as patients were moved out of hospitals that were anticipating high demand for beds.
Of those 30,000, only 10 000 have had Covid-19 specified on the death certificate. While Spiegelhalter acknowledged that some of these ‘excess deaths’ might be the result of underdiagnosis, ‘the huge number of unexplained extra deaths in homes and care homes is extraordinary. When we look back . . . this rise in non-covid extra deaths outside the hospital is something I hope will be given really severe attention.’ He added that many of these deaths would be among people ‘who may well have lived longer if they had managed to get to hospital.’”
What Speigelhalter is saying here is that people may well be dying ‘because of’ Covid, or rather, because of the lockdown. Because they are not going to hospital to be treated for conditions other than Covid. We know that A&E attendances have fallen by over fifty percent since lockdown. Admissions with chest pain have dropped by over fifty percent. Did these people just die at home?
From my own perspective, I have certainly found it extremely difficult to get elderly patients admitted to hospital. I recently managed with one old chap who was found to have sepsis, not Covid-19. Had he died in the care home; he would almost certainly have been diagnosed as “dying of Covid.”
The bottom line here is that, if we do not diagnose deaths accurately, we will never know how many died of Covid-19, or ‘because of’ the lockdown. Those supporting lockdown, and advising governments, can point to how deadly Covid was, and say we were right to do what we did. When it may have been that lockdown itself was just as deadly. Directing care away from everything else, to deal with a single condition. Keeping sick, ill, vulnerable people away from hospitals.
The other reason why having accurate statistics is vitally important is in planning for the future. We have to accurately know what happened this time, in order to plan for the next pandemic, which seems almost inevitable as the world grows more crowded. What are the benefits of lockdown, what are the harms? What should we do next time a deadly virus strikes?
If Covid-19 killed 30,000, and lockdown killed the other 30,000, then the lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time. And should never happen again. The great fear is that this would be a message this government does not want to hear – so they will do everything possible not to hear it.
It will be decreed that all the excess deaths we have seen this year were due to Covid-19. That escape route will be made far easier if no-one has any real idea who actually died of the coronavirus disease, and who did not. Yes, the data on Covid-19 deaths really matters.
Malcolm Kendrick, doctor and author who works as a GP in the National Health Service in England.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-19-why-you-cant-trust-any-statistics-number-victims/5714415
You’ve posted that doctor’s report before.
I asked “What EXACTLY is the number of frontline NHS doctors who’ve “stated they have been signing cause of death certificates as Covid-19 when they have not even been tested for it”…
So your answer is… “ONE”… then, is it?
This is why he uses total uk figs when stating the R factor, it makes it lower. ( 0.9 – 1.0 )
I believe the true fig for England only is over 1.0
The ‘R’ number is a number derived from modelling and then put back into it (remember how well that process went with the ICL fictions?)
Stick to hard data – which shows nothing much that is exceptional about this last year’s mortality in an overall historical context, despite the April peak. People die every year – in some years more than others. But the slightly higher years don’t indicate a plague event. That requires *much more* exceptionality.
Look at the non-epidemic level of deaths
… and just relax. Hysteria itself can lead to fatal events.
David McNiven 4.49pm
Dr Hendrick did indeed state that the statistics were not reliable. You also may note that David Spiegelhalter, in a recent article in the British Medical Journal questioned the validity of the statistics regarding Covid-19. If you have any proof, evidence, documentation which challenges there statements, kindly post it so it can be examined
“ This issue was looked at in a recent article published in the BMJ, The British Medical Journal. It stated:
“Only a third of the excess deaths seen in the community in England and Wales can be explained by Covid-19.
…David Spiegelhalter, chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said that Covid-19 did not explain the high number of deaths taking place in the community.”
“At a briefing hosted by the Science Media Centre on May 12 he explained that, over the past five weeks, care homes and other community settings had had to deal with a ‘staggering burden’ of 30,000 more deaths than would normally be expected, as patients were moved out of hospitals that were anticipating high demand for beds.
Of those 30,000, only 10 000 have had Covid-19 specified on the death certificate. While Spiegelhalter acknowledged that some of these ‘excess deaths’ might be the result of underdiagnosis, ‘the huge number of unexplained extra deaths in homes and care homes is extraordinary. When we look back . . . this rise in non-covid extra deaths outside the hospital is something I hope will be given really severe attention.’ He added that many of these deaths would be among people ‘who may well have lived longer if they had managed to get to hospital.’”
What Speigelhalter is saying here is that people may well be dying ‘because of’ Covid, or rather, because of the lockdown. Because they are not going to hospital to be treated for conditions other than Covid. We know that A&E attendances have fallen by over fifty percent since lockdown. Admissions with chest pain have dropped by over fifty percent”
Lets face it – anyone who hasn’t grasped that Covid-19 ‘death’ figures are wildly uninformative (they only diagnose the *presence* of a virus -of which there are many – not its role) hasn’t even got to Foundation Stage in grasping the parameters of this ‘event’. Then there is this number of ‘cases’ – even more nebulous and subject to the vagaries of tests and testing.
The dire confusing effects of changes in death registration are well documented.
So we always get back to the only reasonable metric – the cumulative number of deaths, which indicate that there is no massively exceptional event this year. Simple, and easily seen by anybody with a pair of eyes and basic mathematical skills.
Unfortunately, there are those who are unwilling unable or incapable of processing the fact that the criteria for registering Covid-19 fatalities has been changed and cannot give reliable statistical information.
The NHS on June 2nd produced a document which showed that 95% of the deaths had 2 or primary illnesses many of whom were over the age of 70 and more than half were 80+ , yet, these basic fundamental truths are washed away in hysteria.
As Jack Nicholson said in the film A Few Good Men , “ you can’t handle the truth”. It he hit right on the nail about some of them!
https://www.bma.org.uk/media/2324/bma-verification-of-death-vod-april-2020.pdf
When Spiegelhalter (for whom I have great respect) says :
“the huge number of unexplained extra deaths in homes and care homes is extraordinary”
… he is missing a key fact – that the *very* low mortality of last year created a much larger vulnerable population in this. The overwhelming majority of deaths occurred in the group who *were older than the average age of death*.
Even with that large number of Care Home deaths, total mortality was not outside normal historical bounds.
As most of the studies have shown the median fatalities rate is between 80-86 ( as measured in 8 countries) and the fatalities rate as measured in different countries regional health services, had the rate between 0.2%- 0.46%.
Correction: …80-86 year olds…
If you expect me to read through reams of your nonsense you’re even more deluded than I imagined.
All I asked was that you just state for the record whether it was one doctor or two – or more – that claimed they were being forced to inflate CV fatality numbers. Not one doctor saying others agreed with him – other, independent sources. Like what real research demands.
Since you’re incapable of answering the simplest question, let’s frame the case against your theory more simply – if you two amateur data sleuths were correct about CV and the rest of the world was wrong, that would make you the two smartest little bunnies on the planet – need I say more?
Some of us here are quite bright – why are we laughing at you? Why are your your theories not gaining traction?
I asked you do you have any PROOF, EVIDENCE, DOCUMENTS which challenges what the NHS doctor and the chair of a medical institution at Cambridge University have stated .Besides of course the chair of the medical institutions article was published in a respected UK medical journal not in some gutter press comic. As usual none was forthcoming. Nothing new there.
So the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of documents across the world that DON’T support your ‘minority report’ are NOT in equally respected medical journals?
Are you calling every other medical journal a “gutter press comic” or do you actually deny the existence of all those millions of pieces of evidence that prove your theory false?
I don’t personally have any of those documents to hand but I can infer their existence because I have a brain capable of reasoning – at quite a high level as it happens.
Yours apparently is only able to regurgitate the plagiarised conspiracy theories of other, more inventive conspiracy theorists. If you were at least original…
I asked you to produce a document, proof or evidence which challenges the statements from the NHS doctor and the chair of the medical institution at Cambridge University who had his article published in a well respected UK medical journal.
To date you have been unable to provide any document, proof or evidence which challenges their written published statements.
Alas all you can do is provide empty rhetoric. No change there I am sorry to say.
I recently ‘saw’ a ‘confidential’ document showing the official figures of staff in NHS hospitals on Merseyside, who had been diagnosed with Covid 19. Some hospitals have staff sickness as high as 37%. Begs a lot of questions about health & safety in hospitals for staff & patients.
AS a still breathing 84 year old former NHS nurse I am wondering how I must have had ‘fairy dust’ sprinkled over me. My grandson, studying medicine tells me I must live to see him graduate and beyond
so I intend to do my best. My health problem is osteoarthritis in too many joints. I can only speculate that. deaths over 80 are associated with a less supported life style. I comment only to reassure octogenarians not to feel the end is nigh but try to make the NHS work in your best interest if only this government allows.