Disproportionate Dying

ONS deaths by vaccination status

I have just discovered this third and final part of my latest ONS analysis stuck in the outbox! Nevermind - here it is.

In the first post in this series of three I explained why analysis using the ONS population denominators was flawed. There are problems with any population denominator and I avoided reference to any in the second post. However, I did carry out analysis using the UKHSA population estimates which I feel is worth sharing.

Vaccination should have no impact on non-covid mortality. Therefore the non-covid mortality itself can act as an indicator of what proportion of the population are vaccinated. UKHSA has a measure of how many people have an NHS number and are resident in the UK. This number is higher than the ONS estimates of the size of the population. Consequently the percentage of the population who are vaccinated (which is counted by UKHSA) works out at a lower value using UKHSA population estimates than ONS population estimates.

The following graphs show the percentage of non-covid deaths that occurred in the vaccinated over time (blue line). The red line is the UKHSA value for the proportion of that age group who are vaccinated. Where the two lines align there is no impact on vaccination. Where the blue line is higher the vaccinated are dying more and where it is lower they are dying less. In late 2021 the two lines meet for every age group. This suggests that the UKHSA estimate for the proportion of the population who are vaccinated is in fact accurate. 

With earlier data releases there was a difficulty interpreting the mortality rates because how close to death someone was may have influenced whether or not they were vaccinated in the first place. Furthermore, there was a lack of clarity in how a “vaccinated” death was defined. The situation is clearer with this later data as the proportion of non-covid deaths that were among the vaccinated population had plateaued in late 2021. From this plateau there was then a rise in 2022. The plateau likely represents a realistic baseline from which mortality has declined. 

N.B. The y axis does not start at zero for all the graphs.

There are two graphs worth a closer look.

First, the 18-39 year old graph. In early 2022, the same proportion of the population were thought to be vaccinated as the proportion of deaths in the vaccinated. However, from late 2022, the proportion of deaths starts to out strip the proportion of vaccinated in the population. From November 2022, this amounts to an excess of 444 deaths in this age group. 

The other age group worth a closer look is the over 80 year olds. The latter half of 2021 showed the proportion of deaths plateauing but at a 0.5% higher percentage than the proportion of the population thought to be vaccinated. The most likely explanation for this is simply that the population estimate is too high and a higher proportion were vaccinated than estimated. However, since 2022, the proportion of deaths in the vaccinated has outstripped this late 2021 baseline and is continuing to rise. Let’s assume deaths among the vaccinated had remained at 96.5%. If we use the number of deaths in the unvaccinated as a control, we can calculate how many total deaths there would have been. Subtracting the deaths in the unvaccinated leaves the total number of expected vaccinated deaths. The actual number of deaths among the vaccinated in this age group was 81,000 higher than this expected value since 2022. That would imply that deaths in the vaccinated cohort in this age group were 23% higher from January 2022 to May 2023. 

Using this methodology to figure out the excess mortality among the vaccinated among over 80 year olds the all cause excess works out at 18,700 deaths from December 2022 to February 2023. Interestingly that is a close match for the calculation carried out using a totally different methodology in my last post (17,000 including non-covid and covid deaths). That is a huge number. It is a good indicator that if there was no current problem with excess mortality in the vaccinated, we would be seeing fewer deaths than expected for the time of year. Instead, deaths have been higher, particularly so in the young and particularly for cardiovascular causes of death. For deaths from Alzheimer’s, the pattern is as we might expect for deaths overall - high mortality followed by lower than expected deaths.

Comparing the deaths from dementia above, there is a stark difference to deaths among the over 85s overall, where there has been an excess almost constantly since July 2021. Winters have wide variation in the number of respiratory deaths and a quiet winter for respiratory deaths in ‘21-’22 meant that the expected deaths were higher for a period, however the excess then returned.

Covid vaccinations were initially sold on the idea of protecting other people and helping the population reach herd immunity. When it was clear that was not what they offered there was a pivot to claim they protected against hospitalisations and deaths. The current data shows that any claims of protection have not just evaporated but have significantly reversed. How this pans out is of relevance to the whole population and the whole world yet the ONS have said they will not be sharing death data broken down by vaccination status in future. Yet again, the data that goes against the “safe and effective” sacred cows is buried by those in power.