UKH

The latest news on this factor which is strongly influencing the current above normal range of excess deaths.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/03/needless-deaths-of-30000-he...

Just a reminder of the Excess deaths which have been mainly above the nine year range since July

https://www.actuaries.org.uk/node/192800/

Here's hoping this thread avoids the conspiracy theories and sticks, as it's an important public health issue.

There's a bit on the BBC News web site about it today;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-63486547

The root of it all is a health service which has been run down and run down by the cons for over a decade. And a rising rate of poverty, due to....erm... the cons for over a decade!! Hmm, I see a theme here.

Not only the NHS, but all the supporting structures around it to keep the nation healthy and sane.

Going to hospital should be the last point of someone's medical journey. (Unless in an emergency) there should be well funded systems in the community to tackle the courses of these issues.

But Tories complaining about the nanny state...

Cheers.... that article contained a useful previous news link I'd missed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62648951

I'm not at all convinced an 'older population' is especially relevant, as even without covid the longevity of the population was stalling and covid led to a loss of a significant proportion of the more elderly vulnerable (a failing care system and a desperately struggling NHS just adds to unnecessary elderly deaths). As wintertree pointed out on the deleted thread another big question on covid factors is: how many people were left in a seriously poor condition after being hospitalised by covid, compared to covid fatalities?

An irony in these deleted discussions is only factor I can't see any evidence for is the conspiracy one, that generates the most heat....a claim of significant MRNA vaccination links ....the opposite seems to be true: adjusted risks on the mortality data indicates risks are higher for the unvaccinated.

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2022/smd/unvaccinated-individuals-with-he....

https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2022/heart-failure-patients-unvac...

https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/08/22/covid-19-infection-poses-higher-ri...

Indeed!

And, of course, all the resulting better health outcomes from the extra funding would increase productivity from a healthier workforce, so economic growth!

But Tories....

Another link to the excess deaths from New Scientist - https://www.newscientist.com/article/2335991-there-are-thousands-more-uk-de...

Dave

My local social media has a thread claiming that there's a lot more people reporting weird and wonderful illnesses post-vaccination, is this a thing?

I've just had one of my replies rejected - nothing offensive, no swearing, nothing extreme in view or politics!

my (unvaccinated) neighbour recently died from cardiac problems that were left too late. i suspect not wanting to risk catching covid was a factor in not getting help sooner..

There is a huge study of US veterans (154k) that showed those who got and recovered from COVID had a 55% increase in the likelihood of subsequent cardio vascular event than those who hadn't had COVID.  As I mentioned on the deleted thread an aspect of these excess deaths will be this delayed pandemic impact - which will be made worse the more people were exposed due to public heath policy failure.  This is the opposite of the "these were caused by lockdowns" argument posed by some people.

https://www.research.va.gov/currents/0222-VA-research-spells-out-COVIDs-dow...

No, see Offwidths link.  Vaccinated individuals are significantly less likely to suffer adverse consequences from COVID infections.  There have been over 11Bn vaccinations so you haven't got enough decimal places on your calculator to show how statistically insignificant anecdotes on social media are.

Aren't the excess deaths not just due to vaccines?

Although given human nature its a lot more likely for it to be mentioned and noticed on social media. Something someone might not have bothered mentioning they do because they got it 34 weeks after vaccination and hence it must have been caused by it.

You're right.  Wait until they see the number of people who die / have a strange illness after drinking tea, eating bananas, watching match of the day.................. shocking I tell you, it's a huge cover up that need exposing.

Beds: very dangerous things. But the Bed Manufacturers Association covers it up.

I'm going to hope that you are just taking the piss.

The health service needs a radical overhaul from bottom to top. Increased privatisation will not do anything other than exclude many people from the basic healthcare they had before (see dentistry, for example). 

Small problems that were once sorted by the NHS dentist, physio, consultant, etc. are now not getting sorted and are ending up as massive problems further down the line. 

I take Toerag's point to mean that people are "reporting" more weird and wonderful symptoms which doesn't necessarily relate to actual illness.

Since COVID I think people are more hyper-alert to their bodies quirks and foibles to illness. We are constantly monitoring ourselves for symptoms and generally if you look for something you will find something. People are "self" reporting weird things full stop (not been right since COVID, still got post COVID cough etc).

Pre-COVID I never really thought about illnesses. Some times I was ill but other than waiting for it to get better I never gave it any thought. Since COVID (the pandemic. I haven't had the disease yet and just had my booster) I seem more "Illness aware" if that is the term.

To try and cherry pick less, look at the cumulative mortality change where short term randomness is smoothed out; figure 4 suggests this year is not much of an outlier in cumulative terms.

Where were the clickbait media stories in Q1 2022 when excess deaths were consistently pushing the lower bound of the historic range?  This is sensationalising what isn’t - yet - exceptional variance in stochastic data.   I’m sure there are good explanations but we have to wait for well controlled analysis.  No shortage of possibilities - healthcare backlogs, worsened public health from pre vaccination covid infections in particular, previously suppressed non-covid respiratory infections now landing after a much longer immune fade period, we could rattle or plausible candidates all day and would be no nearer to an understanding.

A bed manufacturers association coverup would be called a duvet I guess.

While I agree broadly with your synopsis of Tory policy and outcome.
You are conveniently forgetting in Scotland that the Scottish Government has been warned for over >15years of structural problems in the Scottish NHS  in the form of staff demographics, difficulty in recruitment to peripheral hospitals, poor retention of recently qualified staff, shortage of some specialists and Scotlands poor health combined with aging population.

In spite of a higher funding per head via Barnett to try and compensate for Scotlands geographic challenges, and health being fully devolved the SNP opted for a ‘do nothing approach’ as tackling the NHS is a hot potato politically and they didn’t want to risk a backlash; pre-Indy vote(s). Doing nothing has made things worse, the doctors, nurses and public health officials all told them that the crisis was coming and they have done diddly squat.

In Scotland the SNPs pre-Indy Limbo politics has severely contributed to the Scottish problem, when if we had a competent Government, a lot could have been legislated, planned and enacted to mitigate.

This is a subject literally close to my heart.

March 21, woke up having what turned out to be a heart attack. Unfortunately I didn't equate the symptoms at the time so I went back to bed and saw a doctor a week later.

It then took 14 months for an ECG, a cardio thoracic ultra sound, an MRI and finally an Angiogram and stents fitting in May 22. Fortunately for me it was a relatively minor attack but with that sort of time frame I can well imagine people dieing.

Mid September I got a letter from my doctor saying I'm due my now annual cardiology review, I rang the next day and I'm booked in for their earliest appointment on the 5th of December. 

It's hardly cherry picking... significantly lower than range excess deaths early in the year relates to unusually low flu and other respiratory illness deaths, thanks to pandemic prevention  measures and public caution (worldwide). The current stand-out factor right now in above range excess deaths, is cardiac deaths. I'd add, bad news always gets more publicity than good news.

It's an important subject for public discussion in my view. The real click bait crap on this subject is the likes of the Telegraph blaming excess deaths on lockdowns (a factor for a proportion maybe, but not really an avoidable one, given lockdowns were an emergency essential response to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed: a situation that would have caused covid CFRs to increase significantly and many avoidable secondary deaths from other emergencies, that an overwhelmed service couldn't treat as effectively as in normal times. The horrible irony in this crap is: if our government politicians, press and social media had been fully behind the science,  and not spreading misinformation and often plain lies in a pandemic, the lockdowns would certainly have been shorter and less severe (and with fewer knock on negative economic, mortality and health consequences).

In the moment, without a well controlled analysis and with significant opposing data earlier in the year, I'm just going to have to disagree.

Yes, hold on to that thought, I'll come back to it in a couple of paragraphs time...

Is there actually a qualified analysis linking the cardiac deaths the excess deaths?  Apologies if I've missed it.  All sorts of things could be going on, and one factor being high alone doesn't necessarily explain it.

Those lower respiratory illnesses were displaced in time, not eliminated, by the caution earlier on.  They'll start landing now as it's that time of year, and people's immunity will have wanned significantly more than usual by the time of their infection due to the caution, lockdowns and other control measures over preceding 2.5 years.  If you look at the range bars for excess deaths that you're inferring statistical significance from, they're at their narrowest right now - displace respiratory illness from the early part of the year to now and they're going to stand out like a sore thumb.

I could be wrong on the displacement suggestion, but there's data emerging in the US on exceptionally high RSV admissions right now, for example.  

I totally agree; and the painful irony is that the anti-lockdown idiots are claiming the exact opposite and their evidence free, anti-logical view is gaining traction.  They're going to keep pushing and pushing.

If health damage from pre-vaccination Covid is a major contributor to the current excess deaths, a lot of that can be proxied on to the same poor public health response you refer to with your irony comment.  All the more reason for the usual voices to try and shift the blame to lockdown policy.

Another viewpoint is that councils have caused a lot of the problem. By not funding their social care they've left people going to hospital or staying in hospital when they shouldn't be there blocking beds and draining hospital resources (which has a knock-on effect) when they should have had more of other types of care available earlier. It's still a sad story of neglect and  under funding of healthcare for vulnerable people, but a different perspective. Not saying this perspective is "more correct" than any other. Just sometimes worth considering that many ingredients were needed to cook up this big sh!t sandwich 

Apparently...

£ care at home x 3 = £ care in a care home x 3 = £ stay in hospital

...which is why we need loads of investment in care homes and care at home because the benefits will be financial as well as freeing up hospital beds.

The main point is that the fact that lockdowns will have caused future deaths is not a reason to have not had lockdowns. The urgency and potential catastrophic nature of events meant that they were necessary.

However, what the government should have said is:

1. We need lockdowns
2. However, lockdowns will cause health problems further down the line
3. We will invest in people, equipment, training and whatever else is necessary to minimise those problems when lockdowns are over
4. We will not worry about the cost although we will ensure that money is spent efficiently
5. In 5 years, when we have ensured that the health of the nation is at least back to where it was before Covid, we will see if those extra resources can be reduced without significantly affecting the nation's health

We need investment in state run care homes and state run care at home rather than private companies making good profits whilst paying their carers a pittance. 

Whilst I agree with that, regardless of how it's provided, good quality care is not cheap - simply. underfunding leads to poor quality care.

Not for a graph of standardised mortality, no - it's mortality based on a standard reference population.

You spotted that one. But not the BMA...

Timely article - https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/covid-19-surges-linked-to-spike-in-he...

One statistical examination needed is a breakdown of excess deaths by vaccination status. 

Then compare those results with the levels for the whole population.

I think you also need to look at the demand side of the NHS.

Is the NHS doing more?

If so, then what is driving the demand increase?

Good quality care will never be cheap but it could be cheaper by removing the profit margin of the private providers. 

Most likely an ageing population, people living longer due to medical advancements that didn't exist 50 years ago, families moving away from the area so there is no one to look after granny, the obesity crisis (that I'm part of), education or lack their of causing people to live in poverty, increase in the population.