The ONS data on deaths to 3 April has been issued this morning. A summary of the overall data, which is what matters is:
I stress that I am well aware that the number of death certificates mentioning Cvid 19 is lower than the number of excess deaths. I always expected that to be true. Without testing doctors do not certify a cause of death. They suggest the obvious reasons. For those over 85 'old age' is acceptable with further explanation being required.
That is why the only number that matters is excess deaths. It would seem that given that the death rate was running at below average for many weeks before March that it is likely that the number of excess deaths by 3 April was in excess of 7,000, and most likely given that the underlying expectation was for lower than average deaths, somewhat more.
The officially reported number of UK deaths to 3 April was 3,605.
It is therefore likely that the true number of coronavirus related deaths in the UK is at least double the reported number.
Except, and I stress this point, that is also very likely to be a serious understatement. That is because deaths are often registered late. That is because unexpected deaths in the community will need to be referred to the coroner. For those occurring in private homes a post mortem will likely be necessary to establish the cause of death and a death may only be registered after the post mortem report has been sent to the GP with a cause of death so a death certificate can be issued. Since there is now reported to be a big backlog in post mortems registrations of deaths are also likely to be delayed and will not be captured in a timely way by the ONS, which only reports on registered deaths. In that case the police may have better data than anyone right now since they have to visit all unexpected deaths at home. A policeman in London has said he was called to confirm 15 deaths at home on a single recent day.
The true horror of this crisis is still being hidden from us.
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Finally the incontrovertible stats from the ONS. They are not politically controlled.
I’ll be busy telling everyone “told you so”.
Here’s my reading of that table (my opinion only), the running average of deaths and current weekly nos – it changes direction significantly in the last weeks of January- first weeks of Feb.
Anecdotally I have mentioned before I believe I was struck down by a ‘flu’ around the end of 2nd week of Feb. In London.
I think the ONS numbers show that the virus was already here in January.
If proved – the state will be shown to have colluded in deliberately encouraging the spread of the virus.
The “cause of deaths” is a bit of a red herring here. With the NHS operating at or above capacity many preventable deaths will occur or occur earlier then normal. So many additional deaths without the actual presence of the virus in the body should be attributed to the pandemic and the state of the health care system as a whole.
I am not so sure about “colluded in deliberately”. Our government is a populists clown government. They make mistakes by simply being themselves.
Traditionally deaths go down when doctors or nurses are on strike.
Fewer surgeries leads to fewer fatality due to the surgery.
But keep grasping at straws – you might be able to build a ‘man’ out of it!
“If proved — the state will be shown to have colluded in deliberately encouraging the spread of the virus.” They called it “herd immunity”. This is the bit they didn’t read: “Herd immunity is a form of immunity that occurs when the vaccination of a significant portion of a population (or herd) provides a measure of protection for individuals who have not developed immunity.” (https://www.vaccinestoday.eu/stories/what-is-herd-immunity/)
Thanks for the clarity of this blog. Am copying far and wide. I’m sure people would accept and conform with lockdown a lot more easily if this were the Govt message, rather than the crap they’re spouting.
The “Shoot from the hip”, “Just in time”, “Take it on the chin” policy making of Johnson and acolytes have left us in a very weak position. Their libertarian conservatism, smallest state solution does not work now; clearly demonstrated by a lack of grasp of the science and data – no wonder they don’t regard numeracy as important because Johnson & Co could ‘Shot from the Hip’ and be backed up by the loyal band of journalist brothers and sisters.
The lack of Govt resources and preparedness is shown in:
1. Govt confusion on future policy.
2. Lack of essential emergency equipment and supplies in the NHS.
3. Non-response to known pandemic warnings and studies, e.g. of H5N1 and unique coronavirus emergence.
4. Severe lack of testing supplies.
5. Weakness of ‘just-in-time’ supply chains.
6. Destruction of key manufacturing industries able to produce those just-in-time products.
7. Centralisation of decision making and ‘reforms’ of the civil service in process – Cummings.
Just to expand on item 1.
– No wonder this Govt is confused what to do next!
– Why? Because they know a SECOND WAVE is coming soon, which unrestricted would be substantially worse than the first wave. And they don’t have a handle on the first wave.
– To mitigate Covid19 you either need a miracle of an early vaccine, or to test, test and test again [1].
This Govt is way behind other nations on testing – the only way to monitor the spread of Covid infections and mitigate. The attached paper describes what epidemiologists require to know about a pandemic flu:-
i) Instantaneous reproduction number (Rt). (Typically 2-3. Less than 1 contains its spread)
ii) Confirmed case-fatality risk (cCFR). (Look at the data in the cited paper, better informed and prepared regions have low numbers)
Don’t believe whoever tells you testing is unimportant, the Chinese cities/regions that are extensively testing report low Rt and cCFR values [1]; like Germany and Korea.
Will the UK know its Rt and cCFR values, by region, when its having difficulty reporting deaths accurately?
[1] “First-wave COVID-19 transmissibility and severity in China outside Hubei after control measures, and second-wave scenario planning: a modelling impact assessment.”
The Lancet, 8th April 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30746-7
R is >1, by some way
So wave 2 in inevitable
Some interesting info (interesting to me, anyway) coming out of China re. their recent testing. Apparently, up to 78% of infected people could be asymptotic. Mass testing is, as far as I can see, the only, safe, way out of lockdown:
https://youtu.be/KZhBy64bimc
It is the ONLY way out
This is very sobering. And it will get worse. Perhaps this will have more impact than when Danny Dorling showed several years ago that austerity from 2010 to 2017 had caused 120,000 excess deaths. http://www.dannydorling.org/?p=6307
And they were in the baseline figures we are now comparing with
Finally, someone (thank you, Richard Murphy) has done the simple but very robust analysis on the ONS data. Counting COVID cases and COVID deaths is tricky but counting deaths is not. This ONS release will become the key data release over the next few months. “Excess deaths” versus “reported COVID deaths” suggests numbers dying from COVID are double what we are being told.
This does not make the numbers we are being told a “lie”…… we know accurate counting of these things is difficult…. and it is not surprising that we get more reliable data with a time lag. However, the government should now (in a spirit of honesty) use this better quality data and explain it to the public.
Perhaps I missed it – did anyone ask about the 6,000 excess registered deaths reported by the ONS in the week to 3 April (versus the 3,500 recorded COVID deaths that week) at the Government press conference yesterday? It has the impression of selected tame journalists with pre-arranged questions receiving pre-arranged answers.
I did not watch…
[…] Deaths reported were only in hospitals. They were way out of date. Those not in hospital were not recorded. Care homes and deaths at home did not, apparently, count. And then last week we found as a result that deaths were at least twice as high as the government had said. […]