Friday 8 January 2021

Weekly deaths - England and Wales - that was the year that was

Data from the ONS.


See also @Dr_RohenKapur. Total deaths in 2020 were about the same as in the 1990s. Yearly deaths fell to a low in 2011, and since then they have crept up again (2020 deaths were about 5% higher than in the previous three years). Presumably due to Catastrophic Tory Underinvestment In The NHS or something.

24 comments:

Sobers said...

We don't have a public health crisis, we have a public healthcare crisis. The current alleged 'second wave' is nothing of the sort, its just the NHS being incapable to coping with winter demand as is ever the case. Deaths are the only true statistic we can rely on in these reality bending days - even the NHS and PHE etc can't fudge how many dead people there are. And the number of funerals tells us we are currently experiencing an entirely within normal parameters winter. The 'second wave' is a figment of the failings of the PCR test, in fact its exacerbating the problem by causing thousands of NHS staff to be 'off sick' when there's nothing wrong with them.

I guess thinking the above makes me a non-person nowadays. 40 years ago we looked at life in the USSR and how reality and the official line were 100% at odds and we laughed how people could accept it...........now we know how they felt.

Rich Tee said...

The trouble is that all countries are doing the same, regardless of how their health services are organised, which makes it difficult to argue against it.

Bayard said...

RT, it is perfectly possible for delusions to be worldwide, but still delusions. In any case, Japan isn't doing the same as us, to give one example. I don't know about Africa, but the fact that we hear bugger all about what the African countries are doing leads me to suspect that they aren't either. Nor, when you look closely, is China, where the response contains the same elements, but applied quite differently.
In reality "all countries" that we hear about are the USA, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Sweden and Russia if they can be held up as an example of how not to do it, otherwise silence.

Bayard said...

"I guess thinking the above makes me a non-person nowadays. 40 years ago we looked at life in the USSR and how reality and the official line were 100% at odds and we laughed how people could accept it...........now we know how they felt."

and before that there were people who pointed at Nazi Germany and said it couldn't happen here.

Rich Tee said...

Media outlets have been cutting their foreign correspondents for years, so that is why there can be a lack of reporting from the more far flung parts of the world.

Mark Wadsworth said...

S, I think that you are exaggerating a bit, but agreed.

Soviet comparisons are pointless, the UK (like all countries) has a government which lies to its citizens and citizens who believe myths. For example the HoC is the mother of all parliaments or the British Empire treated its subjects fairly and kindly. All complete lies.

RT and B, we don't even know what's going on in the UK. They keep changing the rules, and we don't know whether they are observed. We don't know what NHS capacity actually is. So international comparisons are difficult. And culture comes into it as well.

You cannot compare a strict lockdown in the UK (which nobody observes) with a milder lockdown in Japan (which everybody observes).

Bayard said...

"For example the HoC is the mother of all parliaments.."

This is perfectly true for at least one meaning of the expression "the mother of all.."

As to lockdowns, it seems obvious to me that, in the UK, their rules are deliberately over restrictive, illogical and self-contradictory. This way the maximum number of people will disregard them and so the government can say, it's not our fault the economy's f*cked, it's the fault of all those people breaking the lockdown rules. I have seen this very thing stated on a Farcebook post. So certainly you can compare Japan's lockdown to our, because Japan's is an example of how to do it and ours is an example of how not to do it, unless blame evasion is your sole aim and bugger the public health.

Sobers said...

"As to lockdowns, it seems obvious to me that, in the UK, their rules are deliberately over restrictive, illogical and self-contradictory."

Not only that vast number of people are working as normal, because they have to. All the people involved in keeping vital services running are working as normal, its estimated that 10m people are working outside of the home. So its not even really a lockdown at all, it can't be if we want food in the shops, electric at the flick of a switch, functioning sewers, health care, buses, trains etc etc. So even under 'severe' lockdown conditions approximately a third of the working population are mixing with others on a regular basis. Yes with some social distancing/PPE etc, but human nature is such that those restrictions will be observed more in the breach as time goes by. So the likelihood that infection will continue to spread even under high lockdown is pretty high.

Henry North London 2.0 said...

Thanks for the mention

Mark Wadsworth said...

B and S, agreed.

HNL, it was a good find!

James James said...

Why do fewer people die at the end of August?

Dinero said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dinero said...

Why is the chart on this post totally different from the one on the BBC news website.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274

Bayard said...

Din, one is deths from all causes, about which there can be no argument, you are either dead or not, the other is deaths "with" (note, not "from") coronavairus, which depends on so many variables, noe of which are stated, as to be practically meaningless. For instance, if you are killed in a car accident on your way back from being tested for COVID and the test comes out positive, that is a death "with" coronavirus.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JJ, under-reporting due to August Bank Holiday?

Din, see B's answer.

mombers said...

Sigh, yet more conspiracy theories...

Dinero said...

At first I thought this was very intriguing. But look at the graph at December the deaths are actually 11 % higher than 2019.
In a situation of deaths 11 % higher while it is also known there is a pathogen about, then that is a reason to be very concerned.

Bayard said...

Mombers, conspiracies do exist, you know. If they didn't there wouldn't be a word for them.

Mark Wadsworth said...

M, what conspiracy theories? That's the fun of this blog, we all disagree with each other on most things.

Din, yes deaths were clearly higher in Dec 2020 than in Dec 2019, that's what the chart says. That's why I posted it, to inform and entertain.

mombers said...

@B
1. South Africa is the source of a new variant. Also has been hit very hard, despite a hard (often nonsensical though) lockdown
2. Japan has declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and several other prefectures. Interesting case study though, why have they been less affected?

Mark Wadsworth said...

M, Japan had a milder lockdown. But obeying the law and social distancing is something the Japanese just do anyway. A lot of them wear masks on public transport as a matter of course. Better to observe a mild lockdown than to ignore a harsh lockdown (like in the UK).

I think Japan also restricted international travel. It's a wealthy country with a good healthcare system and I suspect that people in that part of the world have more natural immunity to the diseases that always seem to arise in that part of the world.

Bayard said...

M, that's the first I've heard of it (the situation in SA), which rather proves my point.

mombers said...

@B a rugger bugger jibe is that the South African variant is called COVID-32-12

Mark Wadsworth said...

B and M, that's why you should watch Dr John Campbell on YouTube for his daily updates. He covers SA and the SA variant a couple of times a week