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Covid-19: England sees biggest fall in life expectancy since records began

Covid
#1

Now that the dust is beginning to settle, and the stats are being examined after the emergency is calming down, the picture for excess deaths in England is becoming clear. It’s not a particular surprise, but it is more clarity on just how bad things were in 2020.

In England, covid-19 was the leading underlying cause of death among men in 2020, replacing heart disease, and the second largest cause of death among women, after dementia and Alzheimer’s disease

And

The data also show that the level of health inequalities in life expectancy was larger last year than at any point in the past two decades

<…snip…>

“This demonstrates that the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities in life expectancy by deprivation,” PHE said.

Again, not so much surprising as confirming what we already suspected.

#2

It’s worth pointing out that covid exacerbates an already existing trend in this country created by living under a decade of rule by Tory scum™

Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On - The Health Foundation

This report has been produced by the Institute of Health Equity and commissioned by the Health Foundation to mark 10 years on from the landmark study Fair Society, Healthy Lives (The Marmot Review).

The report highlights that:

  • people can expect to spend more of their lives in poor health
  • improvements to life expectancy have stalled, and declined for the poorest 10% of women
  • the health gap has grown between wealthy and deprived areas
    place matters – living in a deprived area of the North East is worse for your health than living in a similarly deprived area in London, to the extent that life expectancy is nearly five years less.

This is from the executive summary:

The last decade has been marked by deteriorating health and widening health inequalities. People living in more deprived areas outside London have seen their life expectancy stalling, even declining for some, while it has increased in more advantaged areas. For healthy life expectancy there has been little increase for men and a slight fall for women.

This damage to health has been largely unnecessary. There is no biological reason for stalling life expectancy
and widening health inequalities. Other countries are doing better, even those with longer life expectancy than England. The slowdown in life expectancy is
not down to exceptionally cold winters or virulent flu, and cannot be attributed solely to problems with the NHS or social care — although declining funding
relative to need in each sector will undoubtedly played a role. The increase in health inequalities in England points to social and economic conditions, many of which have shown increased inequalities, or deterioration since 2010.

These are points that need to be borne in mind while we uncritically read articles by conservative journalists.

The Tories and their paid-for stenographers don’t give a shit about public health or whether you live or die.

These people are not to be trusted with their libertarian BS - on Covid or any other matter of public health.

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#3

Chalk it all up to another practical manifestation of the Long Descent. Exactly the sort of thing that the clear-seer commentators have been discussing - and expecting - for some years.

Excess-death figures, once we feel we can be reasonably confident that we’re getting sound stats., should be very illuminating. I still doubt that we’ve got to anywhere that you can call a time of reliable figures, though, with all the obvious information scamming that’s been going on. I have zero confidence that that time is past yet. Might take a year or two. But it’s a sound hope that the first vague ideas of just how bad it’s been, especially for the already-deprived, should be coming into view by now, as these things typically go: the gradual appearance of clear hindsight.

The key question, still not clear, is how many extra deaths were due actually to authentically-identified covid, and how many for misidentification, malpractice or stunningly bad government responses. Responses which I absolutely don’t believe were down to nothing more than oafish incompetence. There was pre-planning in it.

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#4

Died of or with? How diagnosed; suspicion or a test not fit for purpose? Figures adjusted for population growth? Figures take into account previous mild flu years? Figures take into account WWII baby boom? To be fair, I’ve not read the article (!), but it would be interesting to see how many of those questions (and the implied answers) hit the mark.

#5

Some interesting questions there for sure.

  • I’ve addressed the “of or with” false dichotomy here many times.
  • I think the diagnosis for deaths will likely be a mix. It’s what end up on the death cert.
  • I’m not sure that life expectancy rises or falls with population growth so I don’t think that’s necessarily relevant.
  • Despite mild flu years, the life expectancy had already stalled in the UK due to Tory Scum™ anti-health policies. 2020 was even worse
  • I’m not sure what the baby boom had to do with life expectancy.

The article is pretty short and, at least to my mind, very clear. It’s just one more piece of actual empirical evidence of the terrible and unnecessary death toll of covid in 2020.

Cheers
PP

#6

Some of the questions have to do with your raising of excess deaths, not life expectancy.

#7

Sure, and I’ve spoken about excess deaths in the UK here many times, with data from the ONS, Euromomo and other sources. If you search the posts you’ll find my posts on that subject.

This article seems to fit right in with the pattern that has been observed for months now. As I said, it’s more evidence clarifying the full picture.

Cheers
PP

#8

Hi PP. Thanks for this. I’m not sure if the dust is settling, or being kept up in the air :slightly_smiling_face:

Just some comments on the report itself - no messengers needing shot, or needing made to get more shots :slightly_smiling_face:

The headline is not a genuine forecast it seems another way of saying there have been deaths.

Yet again we are being told to worry, but not to think - and we are being guided past crucial information (that is hidden in plain view) towards a fear state.

The report itself isn’t terrible by any means, but it passes up the fear packet as the main take home which is duly picked up by the media.
This BMJ article is contributing nothing medical, it’s just media for medics, and medics matter.

The report says

“In terms of excess mortality in other settings, up to 2 July 2021, the ratios were 1.31 for deaths at home and 1.10 for deaths in hospitals and 0.80 (20% fewer deaths than expected) in hospices (Figure 3b). This indicates that a higher proportion of deaths occurred at home than in previous years, but fewer in hospices.”

Deaths at home more than hospitals! This is a remarkably important statistic to get barely a mention.

Where is the graph? It’s in Figure 3b) but you have to click on ‘Inequalities’, and then ‘Place of death’.

image
image646×538 7.64 KB

{Ignore the headline Covid-19 Vaccinations, that’s the next section. I included that to make a snipe at the report - see where we land if we miss this - on ‘Vaccinations’. Safely herded into the pen :slightly_smiling_face:}

We looked at this and the excess number dying at home was at least 600 deaths a week.
An additional contribution was made by covid deaths in the second wave that were overcounted.
One is shown here in this cancer graph in July.

image
image910×550 34.3 KB

{Link: 5,522 people have died within 28 days of having a Covid-19 Vaccine in Scotland according to Public Health Scotland}

See how the excess (dotted line) is below the total in the second wave, but not the first - if all the covid (yellow) deaths were genuinely caused by covid, that would mean if there hadn’t been covid there would have been a fall in excess deaths. So the portion of the yellow (covid deaths) above the 5-year average (dotted line) are surely a result of PCR-only covid diagnosis; hence caused by covid policy or reaction, not covid disease.

To get this comparison you have to pick a medical cause of death, and run through them all - is this not an an interesting obstacle to find under your feet, in order to get an overall view of something so important? Yet it’s not being completely hidden - we’re just being directed past it. Also I couldn’t find these comparisons in the present report (may have missed them).

These ‘crises in hospitals’ have been played for all they’re worth; for lockdowns, vaccines and vaccine extensions which will go probably all the way down to age minus three quarters and could run for ever. The army needed to drive ambulances after 18 months? That would be the government’s planning then?
Yet a bigger proportion of excess deaths resulted from people dying at home; a proportion occurred due to policy in some way, and some definitely due to covid counting.

Where is that discussion? We’re not supposed to discuss that!

A substantial number of deaths were caused by reactions to the pandemic. Policy. This significant ‘bulked up’ part of the excess deaths ought to overshadow claims that ignore this simple fact, and play towards putting fear first.

3 Likes
#9

Indeed; first and foremost, the policy of putting sick hospital patients into care homes, with the resulting deaths. They may have died of covid (or did many die from the drugs they were given?) but much of the blame must go to the officials deciding this course of action.

#10

How mysterious! ‘Excess deaths’ from a ‘pandemic disease’ for which the average age of victims exceeds that of average life expectancy is given as the reason for a drop in that same life expectancy…

Htf does that work?

#11

I’d be interested to know how you square this with the fact that age standardised mortality in 2020 ranked as the 9th worst year this century. If 2020 was that bad, there are 8 other years that were worse and I’ll offer great odds that no one (without reverting to the figures) could tell us which were the other 8

Of course the level of health equalities was larger. The NHS became the Covid health service, doctors were unavailable, money was dished out like sweets but to the GIC’s good buddies, and the massive Coroni advertising budget. Hardly surprising. The only thing I disagree with in this quote is it should read;

“The data also show that the level of health inequalities in life expectancy was larger last year than at any point in the past two decades”
<…snip…>
“This demonstrates that the (insert here, plandemic, scam, corrupt government or any other such word or phrase of your choice, but not pandemic) has exacerbated existing inequalities in life expectancy by deprivation,” PHE said.

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#12

Exactly. The “go home and die, stop hassling us, we have heroics (and dance routines) to perform” N “H” S. Hence the disproportionate ‘deaths at home’.

It is, always was, Class War.

#13

Hi @Evvy_dense

I remember this interesting analysis from a few months back. I was starting to get my head around it, and then other things happened - as you know. I’ll think about it again.

As I said last time, the crux seems to be that if you remove covid, excess deaths in 2020 would be below the average, which seems suspicious to you and points to a fiddling of the numbers, right?

As for your other main point

I 100% agree. Almost all covid deaths were cause by BoJo’s policies. Almost none of those deaths were inevitable.

Anyway. Even with your pretty deep line of questioning, the main results of the paper seem to stand. There was a big spike in deaths in 2020, which has caused life expectancy in the UK to drop.

I’ll finally put some time into thinking about your overcounting suspicions. You’re right that this is something that definitely needs to be looked at and talked about

Cheers
PP

1 Like
#14

Hi @AlanG

As I understand it, we are talking about an average. The average life expectancy has dropped. Because a lot of people on the older side died suddenly in 2020.

It’s because there was a spike in deaths over and above what we would have expected for that year, that the life expectancy dropped.

Did that make it a bit clearer?

Cheers
PP

#15

Morning @PatB

I’m very sure we’ve spoken about this before. Short answer is that it’s to do with changes from the long term trend. Since the NHS started in the UK, the standardised mortality has been trending downwards. We have been getting healthier, new drugs and treatments have been developed. If the trend had continued as normal, we would have expected 2020 to be better that 2019. It wasn’t it was a lot worse. The jump off the trend was the biggest since we started the NHS.

It doesnt matter that in - say - 1978 so many people were dying of lung cancer and in childbirth that they had a larger standardised mortality. Far fewer people should be dying of those things today. The jump in mortality is what matters more than the overall number, for comparisons.

Hope that’s clear.

I don’t see the connection between advertising and the health inequality gap. I do agree that hospitals got shut down to deal with coronavirus - some because of an actual overload, and others because they expected an overload that didn’t arrive.

But the main point is that this pandemic (like all pandemics) disproportionately hit the poor and the immigrants. Those whose health was already compromised.

I agree that this is not surprising.

Cheers
PP

#16

Indeed. And a demographic ‘boom’ 80 years ago would appear in the stats as an upward blip when mortality inevitably strikes. Call it a Correction, maybe? And not especially sudden, just more salient in a time of hysteria.

Which is why the point made earlier in the thread by @Jamie about the post WWII baby boom is valid. All the while those folk were alive the average age of the population was higher.

When mortality takes its toll AND lower birth rates in subsequent years flatten out the average age then the expectancy reduces.

2 Likes
#17

Morning @KarenEliot

Yes, a valid point to some degree. Was covid mortality inevitable though? I don’t think so. Germany didn’t have a drop in life expectancy. Neither did New Zealand, or Taiwan. Or China for that matter or (I’m guessing) South Korea.

The argument that “they were just a bunch of oldies who were about to die anyway” feels unnecessarily callous. And in fact exactly what Boris is supposed to have said. Given how far above the 5 year average 2020 was, it’s clear that without covid these people were not just about to die. The had some years of life left most likely. We could have reacted differently, we chose a path that killed them.

Once again, the only point I’m seeing in the BMJ piece and the PHE piece is that many more people than usual died in 2020, and it’s showing up in the stats.

I think that’s a fact that is worth acknowledging, as so many here want to just plain deny that almost anyone died from Covid at all…

Cheers
PP

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#18

Blunt, yes. We autists do that with aplomb. As I’ve posted elsewhere marana dhammomi maranam anatito (probably badly misspelled). I am of the nature to die, one day I will die.

It’s always going to come earlier than I want it to (assuming I’m conscious at the time) but it WILL happen. The aggregate figures may well point to a virulent Coronavirus doing the rounds, but it’s passage was considerably eased by state actions. whether that was a set of woopsies or far more cynical is moot.

This is what States do. Power, corruption, and lies.

TC

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#19

No argument from me on this. I think this is close to the point I’m making.

Incidentally, the quote that you posted here before

Marana-dhammomhi maranam; anatîto

Has given me a lot of comfort in recent weeks for reasons that I’ll leave unclear. But thank you for that.

Cheers

1 Like
#20

Hi PP. Yes this is old ground to a large degree!

“As I said last time, the crux seems to be that if you remove covid, excess deaths in 2020 would be below the average, which seems suspicious to you and points to a fiddling of the numbers, right?”

I think my point was more of a factual nature. If you removed ‘covid deaths’ then in the second waves, every illness bar one or two would have had mysteriously fewer deaths. That’s what the excess deaths graphs show.

Further, it corresponds exactly to what would be predicted. In the first wave the PCR test was correctly used, mainly for people with covid symptoms, to confirm that they at least had some sars-cov2 virus (whether it caused or accelerated their death or not). That shows in the excess deaths - the so-called ‘covid deaths’ are all (numerically) extra.

In the second wave (s) this was not the case, it was testing, testing, testing. Testing, testing, testing must increase the number of positive test results that are medically irrelevant; heightened by the high Ct value used.
So when the data in the different ‘waves’ bears out these two scenarios it should be accepted in the absence of a better argument, even by the non-suspicious!
I wouldn’t use up any good suspicions (that I may possibly have :slightly_smiling_face: )to just to cast doubt on something that is shown false by the data :slight_smile:

“Anyway. Even with your pretty deep line of questioning, the main results of the paper seem to stand. There was a big spike in deaths in 2020, which has caused life expectancy in the UK to drop.”

Is it a result? And is it a paper? I’d say it looks like a subtraction of a block of a year or so’s ‘pandemic’ deaths from an 80-year life expectancy projection - an apples-oranges subtraction.
If it was a paper it would have posed the question how does a single event affect life expectancy? (A complex question). But it chose to leave a little sensational packet for the media to run with.

I think it’s worth being a little critical, and look at what they are not focussing on.
The number of excess deaths is acknowledged to be 90,000 whereas the covid total was 136,000. But there is no serious attempt to identify sources of pandemic deaths other than covid itself.
Deaths in homes are a large part of this - encapsulating lockdown effects, GP and hospital policies, alcohol and drugs, domestic violence and mental health.
They have the data for home deaths. It was at least 600 per week last time I looked, over a 16 month period this could account for half of this 90,000 total. But for this headline grabber they didn’t show these numbers. Some journalists would have published those numbers, if they were, you know, put under their noses.
Cheers