The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the number of weekly Covid-related deaths has fallen to the lowest level since last October. There has been a particular fall in Covid deaths in the 70-and-over age group, a large proportion of whom have been fully vaccinated. Sky News has the story.
A total of 362 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending April 16th mentioned Covid on the death certificate, according to the ONS.
This is the lowest number since the week ending October 2nd, 2020.
The figure is also down by 4% on the previous week’s total, although the ONS said the number of deaths registered is likely to have been affected by the recent Easter bank holidays.
Around one in 29 (3.5%) of all deaths registered in England and Wales in the week to April 16th mentioned coronavirus on the death certificate.
The latest data also showed a massive 97% fall in Covid deaths in the 70-and-over age group, with 196 virus-related fatalities registered in the week ending April 9th compared with 7,049 in the week ending January 22nd.
Deaths for those aged 65 to 69 decreased by 96% during the same period, with drops of 95% for those aged 60 to 64, 94% for those aged 55 to 59, and 96% for those aged 50 to 54.
Overall, Covid deaths were down by at least 95% since the second-wave peak among people in all 50-and-over age groups, the ONS said.
Worth reading in full.
The ONS also found that almost as many people are now dying from flu and pneumonia as they are from Covid. The Mail has the story.
Flu and pneumonia are now killing almost as many people as coronavirus, official figures revealed today as the outbreak continues to fade away.
ONS analysis showed the illnesses were listed as the underlying cause of death for 265 victims in England and Wales in the week ending April 16th.
For comparison, Covid was blamed for 275 deaths.
Also worth reading in full.
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I’m not disagreeing with the posting of this information – but it isn’t a seminal point. Six months, including the winter peak is not a particularly significant period. Of course, the decline will be attributed to the blood-clotting snake oil – which leaves the same decline in 2020 unexplained.
But the significant figures are those of longer periods and longer comparisons, and I have seen nothing to contradict the observation that the impact of SARS-CoV-2 has not been exceptional – except politically.
Which is the underlying issue
The significant thing is the hypothetical figure: how many people would have died without interventions such as lockdowns and vaccinations? The actual death figures are only a guide in the sense that the beginnings of outbreaks give an idea how fast things might have grown without intervention.
Lockdowns don’t work. Masks have no effect. Both these statements have been validated by peer reviewed studies and indeed were the perceived wisdom before March 2020. To my knowledge there have not been any published studies on anti-social distancing but if you remove the proven myth of asymptomatic transmission then the whole anti-social distancing construct collapses anyway.
But can one definitively prove the steep decline in deaths was caused by the increasing vaccination rates? Maybe, or partly, but maybe not. These statistics gibe with those in my state (Alabama) where “cases” have plunged by 95 to 96 percent since the peak in mid-January (from 5,450 on January 12 to 212 yesterday). So too have deaths and hospitalizations. But only about 16 percent of our state’s population has been “fully vaccinated” even today – and that figure was less than 2 percent when the plunge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths began. I’m simply mentioning an “unknown unknowable” – i.e. we don’t know whether this plunge would have occurred if vaccination rates were much lower.
I happen to think “seasonality” – and the fact many more people than is realized have acquired “natural immunity” – are probably the largest reasons hospitalizations and deaths have plummeted – not vaccination rates. Which doesn’t mean that vaccination rates haven’t played some role; but they are probably not the main reason for the steep decline.
It seems to me we are missing important statistics/data involving the efficacy of the vaccines. Of those who are older and are currently hospitalized what percentage of this number is now “fully vaccinated” and what percentage did not receive the vaccine? If the percentage of older hospitalized COVID patients is much greater among those who have not been vaccinated, we have strong evidence that the vaccine does indeed prevent “severe” cases. Maybe this data is available, but I haven’t seen it reported.
Regardless, such a comparison should soon be available. It just needs to be reported. Now if this data shows that half the older people who are hospitalized have been vaccinated, and half have not, is this really strong evidence that the vaccines “work?” Maybe, it’s evidence the vaccines provide some protection, but is the level of “protection” really 95 percent, as advertised?
As is often the case with journalism, it’s not the data or facts that are presented in a story that show a possible “agenda,” it’s all the statistics and data that could and should be reported, but are not.
Just like not reporting rather a large march.
Well given 95% of the vulnerable groups have been vaccinated, a 50/50 split among hospitalisations would indeed indicate a strong protective effect given the 50% unvaccinated admissions would be coming from just 5% of the population.
As you say though, these figures don’t appear to be available and I believe FOI requests have been batted back as “we don’t hold that information”
“There has been a particular fall in Covid deaths in the 70-and-over age group, a large proportion of people within which has been fully vaccinated. Sky News has the story”
I strongly suspect that this fall is due to fact that nearly all of the people who were vulnerable to COVID (or, indeed, to side-effects of the vaccine) have now sadlidied.
This hypothesis is backed up by the fact that “excess mortality” in the UK is now significantly negative – i.e. fewer people are dying from all causes than is typical in April. So a lot of deaths have been brought forward in time by a few months.
Nothing to do with the vaccine, I suspect… in fact if anything there may have been even fewer deaths in the over 70s without it.
I suspect the real truth about covid is that it picked off the fat and unhealthy many of whom made a life style choice to be so.
Another donut Boris?
Totally agree, Carrie.
Of the 127,000 plus that have been classed as Covid deaths perhaps 7,000 have actually died ‘of Covid”.
The rest were bought about by extreme old age, underlying health problems and bad diet.
Quite, but don’t forget that only a small number of even the very elderly and ill sadlidied. IIRC I saw figures that 90% of sufferers over 85 miraculously survived this existential threat to humanity.
And as someone a bit younger, but vulnerable, I would rather take my chances on the small possibility of catching Covid than of deliberately ‘infecting’ myself with an under-tested novel vaccine about which we know little.
The way things are going, soon the vaccine deaths will outnumber the “covid deaths”
The key fact is that the same pattern of decline (from a higher point) occurred in April 2020 when there were no vaccines.
I can’t prove this, but the effect of the vaccine is just as likely to have been to increase it and create the higher than expected January peak, rather than to have been responsible for the recent decline, which is within normal parameters.
Anyway, given a choice between the analysis by Whitty and Co. or that of Bhakdi, I think its a no-contest. The latter has the better record.
I agree. Again!
Local to me, I’m still trying to talk my colleagues out of the jab, I’m 40, they are the same or younger, ibe went for his yesterday. The West Suffolk Hospital here probably told the lad to take an aspirin and go to bed – Sad times, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9516013/Fit-healthy-engineer-27-died-three-weeks-having-AstraZeneca-anti-Covid-jab.html
This (moderated) Daily Mail commenter clearly still does not ‘get it’.
At some point, 90 to 100 percent of citizens over the age of, say, 65 are going to have been “fully vaccinated.” We might already be approaching this level in some nations or regions of countries. Well, if and when this is the case, and when we then read about hospitalization rates in these countries/locales – and these stories mention that X percent of hospitalized patients are over the age of 65 – we are going to be able to logically know that these people had to be hospitalized from COVID … even though they have been fully vaccinated.
I’m not sure we can take this information to mean that the vaccines don’t “work.” However, we would be able to say definitively that, at least for these patients, the vaccines did NOT prevent “severe” cases.
I suspect such stories – or data that would make it possible to quantify these numbers and conclusions – will not be widely published.
If my thought exercise is correct – and if vaccines ARE “95 percent effective” at preventing “severe cases” (those that require hospitalization), in the future we should learn that the vast majority of hospitalized COVID patients are among the unvaccinated (and younger age cohorts). But I don’t think this will turn out to be the case. Or I don’t think we will be reading stories that quantify this is the case.
“The ONS also found that almost as many people are now dying from flu and pneumonia than are from Covid”.
So has flu made a comeback ? Last I read from PHE they had not identified a single case of flu from January until late February. Perhaps it’s all pneumonia.
I spotted a placard at the demonstration in London on Saturday which read “MAKE INFLUENZA GREAT AGAIN”. Very clever.
Flu strangely made a comeback last August as well I remember. Almost exactly the same words used as the ONS are using now.
From what one nurse told UK Column recently, hospitals weren’t testing for flu.
Oh, come on. Who can be surprised that in the Northern Hemisphere deaths from respiratory illnesses decline when we leave the autumn/winter season? Or has mentioning seasonality been declared verboten, like herd immunity?
Seasonality is rarely if ever mentioned by those pushing the madness. It doesn’t suit their purposes.
And would you anyway trust those running an advertising campaign for any product to give you full and fair information about it? PR and lobbying organisations are not in the business of information – particularly if they are in the business of having to unload billions-worth of product that were bought as a gamble. And particularly if thy had a long track record of flogging rancid porky pies.
Another reason to be suspicious of claims about the ‘vaccines’
Not much of a slogan for a Sceptic banner on the barricades
“No to Lockdown ! ”
“No to Vaccines ! ”
“Support Seasonality NOW ! “
Am I off base here? Is my “logic” wrong? If the vaccines are “95 percent effective” at preventing “severe cases” (which would mean those requiring hospitalization) at some point we should be able to read an article that includes a sentence like this:
“In the UK today, there were 1,000 patients over the age of 65 who were hospitalized from COVID. Of these 1,000 COVID patients, 950 had not been fully vaccinated and 50 had been fully vaccinated.”
If and when I read this story, I too will agree that the COVID vaccinations are “95 percent effective” at preventing “severe” cases.
You are right that analyses by vaccination status are needed.
The ONS said they were going to provide an analysis of deaths by vaccination status by the end of March. They’ve failed to do so.
If you genuinely want to evaluate if experimental vaccination has any affect in preventing (or increasing) deaths then you would make sure that analysis was done and that the data was openly available.
Much easier for government to assert vaccination works based on a belief system without any real evidence, and allow biased or poor main stream media, including this website at times, to just parrot those assertions as fact.
Indeed. Anyone who believes the govt is interested in finding out the truth needs their head read.
I’d argue they are doing everything they can to make sure the truth doesn’t get exposed.
In fact, I’ve argued just this – and cited evidence from my own experiences – to support my conclusion. One publication (most have never heard of) actually published this piece. God bless them.
https://uncoverdc.com/2020/07/13/covid-19-is-a-real-search-for-the-truth-now-taboo/
Well yes, but this rather depends on the category “covid patient” meaning something. The term as used here and the criteria by which data are gathered and published is someone in hospital who has tested positive for the virus within 28 days, regardless of what they were in hospital for and regardless of symptoms. Also bear in mind that the test is likely to be PCR at X cycles where X is unknown/random/more than the recommended level for determining someone is actually ill with covid.
The govt has no real clue as far as I know of the number of people who require treatment primarily because of covid (confirmed positive test with definite covid symptpms) nor do they appear to have any interest in finding out. You’d think they would want to know this crucial piece of information, and that “journalists” and “opposition politicians” would ask about it. But they don’t.
Nothing unusual going on in older age groups based on past trends.
It’s irrelevant how deaths are labelled so best to look at all cause mortality
Seasonality!! I really don’t think anyone really knows how these vaccines are going to work until the next winter season begins. And even then perhaps we will have reached herd immunity.
But I would be quite happy to have them believe the vaccines are what did it just to get us out of this hole. Though it may not be that simple as now it feels like everyone, all the time must be fully vaccinated.
Whatever you do don’t mention that there is a bad cold going about or Handcock (pun intended) will bring lockdown back!
This is absolutely not worth reading in full.
The stats stank from the off. Why waste time reading this sideshow?
I’m still not convinced that this is the vaccine…we didn’t have it last year and yet covid miraculously went away (except in poor Leicester where testing was used as an excuse to keep them locked down for 13 months continuously now).