After Mike Yeadon mentioned that there was no excess mortality in England and Wales since June, except for a slight jump in October, which he believes is not due to respiratory illness, I checked the ONS website and found his suggestion to be true.
In mid October there was a rise in weekly mortality of about 1000 compared to the 5 year average. This is the number he suggests is what you’d expect to see if the population had not accessed the health service for a period of 6 months or so and he proposed that the increase comprised of heart disease, cancers etc.
The weekly ONS chart has a line for respiratory deaths and another for deaths where covid was mentioned on the death cert.
The 2020 respiratory line alone, when compared to 2019, is lower and there is a note that says if a death has a respiratory cause and covid was present it would be counted in both lines, duplicated.
I phoned the ONS to try and understand better and spoke to a chap who was helpful but slightly confused himself.
Example, week 42, the latest entry:
Total deaths 10,887
Respiratory deaths 989
(2019 week 42 respiratory deaths 1,236)
Deaths where covid was mentioned on the death certificate 1,379
Of the 1,379, he told me approximately 1,100 occurred in hospitals and covid was considered the main cause of death, but then he said, hang on, that is higher than the total for respiratory deaths - assuming that all deaths where covid is considered the primary cause of death would be considered respiratory.
I’m waiting on some further info that he will email me, but thought these were interesting figures.
Am I missing something obvious, or does this seem a little confusing?