Weekly England, UK COVID Update - 26th Jan 2021

This weeks in-context weekly COVID update.

Part 1 – Mortality trends

England & E&W ONS Total Mortality data in today – much the same as last week.

⬆️ As you can see from the the top graph, and as messaged throughout, we would expect to see this weeks ONS data represent the Total Mortality peak for the year, with a reasonable tapering down here on out.

You can also see from the top graph that compared to the 5YR Total Mortality min-max range (2015-2019), we’re ~1,500 over the expected envelope.

🌚vs🌝 – Contrast the excess of Spring to the excess of Winter… a very different picture.

ℹ️ As an FYI, when we gained increasing awareness of Sepsis in this country, we saw a massive increase in deaths certified as Sepsis. There wasn’t an epidemic of Sepsis – instead increased awareness and perhaps a little over zealous reporting created the swing.

Expect that phenomenon to be having an effect in the death certifications – especially considering the numerous PCR testing issues and how COVID seems to have morphed into a disease that effects every organ system and covers almost all disease manifestations (if the person tested PCR positive).

↙️ The bottom left graph shows the daily graph, and contrasts that to the Sweden normalised daily COVID Deaths (dotted yellow).

↘️ The bottom right graph shows E&W Total Mortality in comparison to the 5YR average (2015-2019). Again, we expect to see that drop starting next week.

Now, there is no certainty of anything in life, so we should in part expect the unexpected. This is NOT a normal year for a few reasons:

𝟏 – Lockdown & Restriction induced Sickness amplifying death rates

𝟐 – Experimental Vaccine Rollout could be having a negative effect on sickness and mortality

𝟑 – Increased respiratory infections driven by public health decline and prevalence of SARS COV2

Part 2 – Positivity & Global Rankings

PHE Coronavirus data shows a weird phenomenon…

⬆️ Look at the top graph. Check our Sweden’s Deaths per Positive Test graph. Both UK & Sweden data have lag, but look at the relative difference.

Sweden looks normal. UK looks very funky. All the while we have been in Lockdown of some shape or form since November, and we have been Vaccinating since 8th December… 🤔

Let’s not get drawn into the smoke and mirrors of “variants”. All you need to do is listen closely to the words in the press conference to see that there is no biological evidence to infer any changes in phenotype.

🙈 They are fumbling in the dark… hoping the story seems believable.

❌ When using epidemiological data, the golden rule is – correlation does NOT equal causation.

🤷🏻‍♂️ And with SO MANY moving parts currently, we could blame this odd situation we find ourselves in to lockdowns, public health decline, experimental vaccines, winter indoor habits, policy-induced hospital pressures, increased drinking and processed foods, or transitions in the virus phenotype.

Another explanation could be that lockdown means less community testing and more hospital diagnosis and HCAI. As the Total Mortality profile is independent of testing, this in turn would give a higher rate of Deaths per Positive Test.

↙️ Positivity has dropped significantly. This marries nicely with the scaled push of Lateral Flow Tests. More on that in Part 3.

When will we get honest?…

👁 At some point we need to have a long hard look in the mirror…

❗️We’re topping the global leaderboard (just behind Belgium) from a COVID Deaths per Million basis.

UK, with a Govt that is so #proud of their #leadership from the outset.

🥇 Leaders in Modelling. Leaders in Testing. Leaders in Lockdowns and Laws. Leaders in stimulus packages. Leaders in Genomic Sequencing. Leaders in Vaccine Development. Leaders in Vaccine Rollout – the first! Leaders in Socialist Healthcare.

🤫 Also, up near the top of the pack in term of Obesity, Metabolic Syndrome, explosion of Chronic Diseases, Mental Health Crisis, and being an international travel hub.

↘️ Take a look at the leaderboard of developed countries in the bottom right. This is not something to be proud of.

We need to be asking some serious questions about:

(𝗔) Our Govt’s heavy hand through the last year

(𝗕) Our Govt’s negligence of an ever worsening Public Health situation – especially in last 12 months

(𝗖) Our Govt’s handicapping of the NHS and over-zealous push to deploy an experimental set of biologics onto our most vulnerable population

❓Has it worked?

I’ll let you ponder on that.

Perhaps it would have been 5x worse without the govt induced trauma onto our country. Based on the global stats, that is very unlikely…

😔 Best guesses are we would have had a better outcome with a softer more pragmatic touch that focussed on actual health building vs empire building and ego-strokes.

Part 3 – Excess Setting & Local Stats

⬅️ All the graphs to the left are from the ONS. Data on the right pulls data from the the PHE Coronavirus dashboard API.

🏡 Due to lockdowns, restrictions, handicapped NHS, COVID burden, lack of GP F2F consults, and fear of COVID/Hospitals, we’ve lost 38.5K extra people at home since March 2020 that did NOT die from COVID.

Care Homes are continuing to fare well considering they house the most elderly and unwell population. There was a mild excess of 405 last week. I suspect Care Home numbers are OK because those testing positive are taken to the hospital.

🏥 Hospitals is where all the big problem is – and expectantly so. We may have seen the peak of hospital excess this winter. HCAI and policy-induced hospital pressures cannot be forgotten when we think about this environment.

➡️ Lastly, the table on the right you can see the Local Area Key Stats. You can check out your local area by searching the table – check it ou in the comments below.

👍🏼 Almost everywhere is seeing a decline in all metrics, but in particular 7-day rolling PCR Positive (Case) Rates.

😮 You MUST check out the volume of Rapid Tests (Lateral Flow) that are being performed per locations. Kent, for example, is up to 85K tests a week!

That’s it for this weeks update. On Thursday/Friday we’ll update the NHS Trusts data with the latest weekly data drop.

#FactsNotFear

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DATA SOURCES:

Data from PHE, FHM and Worldometer. COVID+ Insights Dashboard linked below 👇🏼

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