To wonder why nobody is talking about the excess death rates

[Sotiredofallthisnonsense]

That's all really. It's not just the UK - so NHS and strikes etc won't account for similar or significantly worse death rates in other areas of the developed West.

There is very very little media attention on this. Am I being unreasonable to wonder why?

The science that studies people in the real world is showing huge signals of health damage.

Yes, from Covid-19 itself.

So, I’ve taken the time to look into this excess death “spike” that is being discussed. It’s no good to compare #deaths each year because that doesn’t account for the differences in #people or things that affect mortality such as age of the population.

There is a measure for this which is called ASMR (age standardised mortality rates). So, I looked at the ASMR for 2022 and it is below the average from 2015 through 2021.

“ONS reports that when looking at the excess mortality in 2022 overall, deaths were 6.3% above average, whereas ASMRs were 0.7% below average.”
osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/osrs-review-of-excess-deaths-reporting/pages/1/

So, in short, once you adjust for the population growth in the U.K. and the ageing population, there is no spike in excess deaths.

The webpage I linked also critiques how ONS is presenting excess deaths information and how it is not giving people or journalists sufficient context to understand the data properly. Hence the sensationalist media articles by journalists lacking basic epidemiological knowledge.

That makes sense. Thank you for explaining so clearly.

Here’s the data for ages 0-24 between March 2020 and Jan 2023. The bits coloured yellow are covid deaths (or at least it was mentioned in death certificate). Expected number of deaths (purple line) is based on the average number of deaths each week in that age group between 2015 and 2019, so pre covid average weekly deaths.

I should add, the above only relates to England.

@Sotiredofallthisnonsense have you read the post above by @Onnabugeisha which explains the data for you?

Can you see there is nothing to worry about and has she put your mind at rest now? Do you see why everyone is not talking about something that isn't a problem?

Some more stats for you OP
I previously posted stats from Worldometer website but the uk now only publish deaths on here from / people with covid that occurred in hospitals that had a test 28 days prior to death. So not including deaths in care homes and outside hospitals and of course this is not an excess death figure.
The attached stats are from Statistica

As an aside i calculated the population against the total deaths last reported for the week ending Feb 3rd and I had to use mid year population ( nothing for the Februaries of each year, but nevertheless whilst not an exact figure it gives a general feel for numbers of excess deaths and how they’re going )
I apologise to those from N.Ireland and Scotland the figures published are only for Wales and England.

Feb2020 1 death / 5142 people ( 59500000 populationW&E / 11612 ex deaths )
Feb2021 1 death / 3237 people ( 59719700/18448 )
Feb2022 1 death / 5028 people ( 59642000/11862 )
Feb2023 1 death / 4460 people ( 59817600/13412 )

So in Feb 2020 ( pre covid ) we had the least deaths / population at the time and the most in Feb 2021
We are not back to pre covid levels. Deaths of people who died in hospital with covid on their death certificate for Wk Feb 2023 are approx 92 ( figure up to 5th February )

Gosh
Havent done that much maths since we were in the middle of the pandemic and I was obsessed with covid stats.

Coffee time me thinks.

Apologies the call shown is not ex deaths. It’s for total deaths.

Those 0-24 deaths are tiny, though, as in 20-30 people excess (per week?) out of .... almost 20 million people? Can't think that's statistically significant.

IIRC, the weekly numbers are many hundreds of excess deaths in smaller total population older age groups.

@lljkk
your gut is correct
None of it is statistically significant, per the excess deaths ASMR, they are lower than usual (compared to rolling 5 Yr average between 2015-2021).

"Can you see there is nothing to worry about and has she put your mind at rest now? Do you see why everyone is not talking about something that isn't a problem?"

But it is a problem where I live and the nearest city. Whatever the reasons, the fact that families have to wait for weeks to bury loved ones because funeral directors cannot keep up is newsworthy. In my opinion.

Agree
Its v clear from the charts and stats there are more deaths this year than in 2020 and 2022. 2021 higher due to covid.
Also clear from ASMR we’re not back to the levels we should be at. ( we also lost a lot of our elderly and vulnerable due to covid so one would expect these figures to be much better aswell.)
Deaths for the week up to 3rd Feb shows an increase of 600 deaths compared to 2020 in the same week…..that’s a lot. Keep multiplying the weeks and it’s a lot of people
I suppose everyone has their own idea of what’s acceptable/ not unusual/ nothing to worry about.

But I agree with the funeral issue, it’s another indicator. Our graveyard covering a wide local area is once again filling up faster than normal.

Its not being reported I think because
-the papers think we re all bored of talking about excess deaths,
-the govn doesn't want to stress excess deaths as not looking at covid anymore ( it’s just like flu😳…I do appreciate it’s not all covid 92 in the week identified ) and don’t want deaths to reflect on the nhs
-we re all struggling with the cost of living crisis which is more newsworthy.

If people / the news / papers etc don’t want to talk about it that’s their choice. Doesn’t mean it’s not real….we can all do the maths.
So OP. Keep yourself and your family as safe as you can

But a "normal" percentage of a higher number could overwhelm a mortuary. If we have loads more population, unless we've trained and opened a corresponding number of mortuaries then it's reasonable to think the mortuaries that exist are working much harder. And I don't know what their staffing situation is like but if it's like every other sector then they're probably suffering man power issues

Love charts
Heres some more for you OP

Also clear from ASMR we’re not back to the levels we should be at.

NO! The ASMR shows that excess deaths are BELOW average since 2015.
It shows we are lower than “where we should be” as if we had NO pandemic.

But who’s to say that is because of death rates? It could be a supply problem, not a demand problem.

Yeah maybe.

See chart on left above

Attached to wrong post. Apologies.It was meant for your earlier one.

Heres some figures re ASMR for England and Wales.
The study was looking at winter deaths so it’s not up to Feb2023 only Dec2022.
Generally ASMR has been coming down for a long time, better health care, nutrition, less smoking etc. But it had been slightly levelling off more recently and was expected to continue to do so.

As a final note OP, just spotted this in todays news.
It is part of a story re death of lady due to waiting 15 hours in an ambulance

Is that enough to help? No idea.

We now have our highest immigration (1m a year, 500k net immigration) so everything is getting busier and busier and lots more deaths, never mind shortages of NHS care and houses to rent. This is just part of the pattern of a very crowded England.

Your chart is all deaths, not excess deaths…

chart on the left. It’s age standardised mortality 2001-2022
The one on the right is just deaths

My calcs higher up the post show actual numbers against actual population in the same month of February for those years ( as the OP was asking the Q about the situation now )
A later post gives an ons summary of ASMR.

Yes, it’s ASMR for all deaths not excess deaths.
I posted upthread the ASMR for excess deaths with explanation.

So your chart has no bearing on mortuaries having increased demand as is being claimed.