Recent, alarming, all-cause mortality statistics from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) reveal that people in England and Wales continue to die in unusually high numbers. A total of 51,159 people died over and above the statistical five-year average in 2022, according to analysis commissioned by the Times.
Source: ONS, via The Independent
The ONS reports that, when adjusted for population growth and age distribution, the age-standardised mortality rate (ASMR) for 2022 was actually lower for both England (-0.7%) and Wales (-1.1%) respectively than in 2021. Unfortunately, since the absolute number of deaths continues to climb, this offers little reassurance.
In ASMR adjusted terms, 2020—the pandemic year—was only the ninth-highest year of mortality even within the first two decades of the twenty-first century. ASMRs are useful for analysis over longer timeframes, as demographics evolve, but less so when rapid changes are underway. While the ASMR for 2020 undermines the "devastating global pandemic" narrative that we were given by the UK Government and its bought-and-paid-for mainstream media, it did mark the start of worrying upward mortality trend.
The question is why.
A Statistically Confused Picture
According to the ONS, in the first three weeks of 2023, a total of 48,183 people died in England and Wales. This represents 6,252 more deaths than the statistical five-year average for the corresponding "non-pandemic" weeks in previous years. We will question whether this "non-pandemic" assumption is credible in a moment; but, of the total number of deaths, 2,442 deaths (5.06%) were said to "involve" Covid–19.
The ONS states:
We use the term “involving" when referring to all deaths that had the cause mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, whether as an underlying cause or not.
There are so many problems with the attribution of Covid–19 mortality that it is difficult to know how many people's deaths were genuinely "caused" by Covid–19. These problems range from questionable changes in the death registration process and ICD–10 coding to diagnosis reliant upon non-diagnostic tests and death certificates signed remotely by physicians who didn't even meet the deceased prior to signing.
None of this was "normal" prior to the so-called pandemic. These changes were the result of the international and national "measures" made specifically in response to and only for Covid–19.
Then there are the numerous methodological changes to the way in which Covid–19 mortality data was recorded and reported. At a time when accurate data and statistical analysis could not have been more important, it seems quite bizarre that the UK Government would make so many alterations, effectively throwing long-standing statistical methodologies and mortality data gathering practices into turmoil, during an alleged pandemic. Nonetheless, while remaining mindful of the doubtful "official" statistics, we still have data that raises significant concerns. In three weeks at the beginning of 2023, beyond the mortality that we might expect, an additional 3,810 people died in England and Wales. Sadly, there is reason to suspect that the situation could be worse than the "excess mortality" figures suggest.
With the statistical year divided into 52 numbered weeks (or 53 once every four years), the ONS explains its methodology for calculating the relevant weekly average for 2022 as follows:
The years 2015 to 2019 are still the most recent years which were not impacted by Covid–19, however [no comma in original] the further we move away from 2015 the less helpful this measure becomes due to the changing structure of the population. Including 2020 in the five-year average would greatly increase the number of deaths we would class as ‘expected’ each week, because of the peaks of the pandemic, and therefore decrease the number of ‘excess’ deaths counted.
The decision was made to move to an average of the following five years: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. This moves our five-year average along by a year but does not include the exceptionally high number of deaths seen in 2020. It allows deaths in 2022 to be compared with a five-year average that is as up-to-date as possible while still being close to representing a ‘normal’ year.
The "up-to-date" average, from which "excess" deaths were calculated in 2022, excluded the higher "pandemic" year of 2020 but included the similarly "high" mortality in 2021. The 2022 average was creeping up.
For 2023, the higher mortality that occurred in both 2021 and 2022 is included. Consequently, the 2023 "weekly average" is markedly higher than the "weekly average" used in the previous two years.
The reported "excess" mortality—over and above the average, seen in the first three weeks of 2023—has thus effectively been lowered, due to the use of a higher statistical benchmark "average”. As just mentioned, much has already been reported in the mainstream media about the excess mortality in 2022.
To illustrate how the new, ever-increasing, five-year average can be deceptive, if we focus solely upon "excess mortality”, we should consider that the same three-week period in 2022 saw 38,343 people perish. While the reported 2023 excess is 6,252 deaths, there were actually 9,840 more deaths in the first three weeks of 2023, compared to 2022, in England and Wales. It seems that increasing mortality is the "new normal”.
We are discussing the mortality statistics in England and Wales, but the same patterns of mortality are evident in Scotland and Northern Ireland. This is a concern for the whole United Kingdom.
In Scotland, the National Records of Scotland (NRS), extensively used by David Tait in his research for UK Column, use the same methodology as the ONS:
Usually the previous five years are used to compare against the most recent year’s births and deaths. [. . .] However, as excess deaths are a key measure of the effect of the pandemic, it is not appropriate to compare the 2021 figure against the 2016–2020 average as that average will be affected by the pandemic with higher deaths in 2020.
Both the NRS and the ONS have removed 2020 from the statistical average because they assess that the 2020 mortality was "affected by the pandemic”. As just discussed, we also saw high levels of mortality in 2021 and 2022 which are equally considered to be "impacted by Covid–19”. Yet, supposedly, these years are not "a key measure of the effect of the pandemic”.
The odd distinction stands in contrast to the "official" UK Government position. Following two years of monumental societal, political, economic and financial changes, apparently, we must all now learn to live with Covid–,19. Presumably this is not something we were capable of doing two years earlier, despite the fact that elevated levels of total mortality remains largely unchanged.
At the time of first drafting (February 2023), the UK Government has not declared that the pandemic is over. From a political perspective, the Covid–19 "pandemic" appears to be permanent. The World Health Organisation (WHO), from which the UK Government takes its public health policy lead, also recently renewed its designation of Covid–19 as a "public health emergency of international concern" (PHEIC). The US President declared the Covid pandemic to be over in his country on 11 May.
If the claimed Covid–19 deaths during 2020 are considered to be a "key measure" of the supposed pandemic, so should the 2021 and 2022 figures, surely? By dint of not doing so, even though we are still supposedly living with a “pandemic”, it is only 2020 that has been statistically designated as the “year of the pandemic”.
The statistical authorities assert that elevated mortality in 2020 occurred due to Covid–19, whereas the very similar elevated levels and patterns of mortality in 2021 and 2022 are said to be primarily attributable to other, combined causes. There is no evident reason to claim that the "effect of the pandemic" is absent from the 2021–2023 data.
So why make the distinction?
The Increasing Number of Factors
As the mortality statistics continue to cause alarm, the statisticians and the mainstream media are in lockstep. In contrast to 2020, they now report that the reasons for the deaths arise from a "number of factors”—the inexplicable inference being that these factors were not present during "the pandemic”. In reality, with a notable couple of exceptions, they all were.
The explanations offered for the current elevated levels of mortality include a lack of NHS capacity, overloaded British hospital Accident & Emergency departments, poorly staffed and equipped care homes, systemic problems with early warning screening for life threatening conditions, and expanding waiting lists for medical treatment. All of the cited references in the previous sentence link to reports that immediately pre-date the so-called pandemic.
Not only were these "factors" already present prior to and during the pandemic, every policy decision made by the UK Government during 2020 made them worse. It appears that the "number of factors" identified as currently contributing to excess mortality were also contributing to excess mortality during the “pandemic”. Perhaps a reluctance to acknowledge this explains the otherwise nonsensical differentiation.
With politicians, the mainstream media and the official statisticians alike now averring that higher mortality rates are caused by the same complex combination of factors that was extant in 2020, the only remaining statistical evidence suggesting the possible marked impact of a "global pandemic" in the United Kingdom is the significant spike in mortality that occurred in the spring of 2020.
Yet, if we look at this spike, it also corresponded directly with a series of policy decisions that all increased the mortality risk.
These "non-pharmaceutical interventions" (NPIs) included guidance issued to the NHS that injured, vulnerable people shouldn't be taken to hospital; the sudden discharge of vulnerable patients from hospital, without prior safety assessments; the removal of access to primary healthcare for the most vulnerable patients; and the widespread use of "Do Not Resuscitate" (DNR) notices, often against the patient’s wishes, their family's wishes or without their knowledge.
In addition, the NPIs were combined with a staggering increase in the use of a dangerous cocktail of drugs. In March 2020, the NHS purchased the equivalent of two years worth of supply of benzodiazepine, sold as Midazolam. This resulted in a huge spike in the prescribed use of midazolam hydrochloride in April 2020. This, in turn, corresponded precisely with the large anomaly in the mortality statistics that accounted for nearly all of the excess mortality in the "pandemic year”.
Midazolam hydroxychloride-prescribed "spike" in April 2020, courtesy of OpenPrescribing
At the same time, the NHS Clinical Guideline for Symptom Control for patients with Covid–19 recommended that treatment for those with obvious breathlessness should start with "morphine 20 mg and midazolam 20 mg”. This is the same combination of drugs used to illegally "end the lives" of at least 456 people at Gosport War Memorial Hospital during the 1990s, with many thousands more linked deaths suspected.
These "factors" could just as easily account for the significant spike in mortality seen in the spring of 2020. In combination with the dubious attribution of a Covid–19, in an unknown number of deaths, and the mortality risk increasing policy decisions, the evidence of an infection-driven "pandemic" is painfully thin.
Source: Daily Telegraph
If we doubt that disease caused any pandemic, we can also see how the public perception of a pandemic was created through other means. Most notably, it was brought about by the constant barrage of mortality reporting that has now ceased. One wonders what the public perception would be today if the hundreds and occasionally thousands of weekly excess deaths in 2022 had been incessantly reported.
Without a thorough investigation of the "measures" that significantly increased the mortality risk, and in light of the fact that the same "number of reasons" for today's excess mortality were also present in 2020, it is reasonable to question whether a "pandemic" even occurred in Britain. It is also clear that the increase in mortality, that began in the spring of 2020, is unabated in 2023.
What We Know and What We Don't
As the full ONS dataset for mortality in England and Wales in 2022 is not yet available, we can only make a comparison for the March–June period.
In 2020, between March and June, 232,841 people died in England and Wales. The total "excess" mortality for the year stood at 79,343. The large spike in mortality in April and May 2020—which could have been attributable to many "factors" other than Covid–19—accounted for almost the entire "excess" for the year.
In 2021, the same four month period saw 169,278 people die, and the annual excess mortality, using the same 2015-2019 average, was 54,257. The apparent excessive use of respiratory suppressants and some of the most high mortality risk NPIs, such as the “do not convey to hospital” instructions, were not such notable features of the second large spike in so-called Covid–19 deaths in early 2021.
A new “factor” seemingly relevant to the 2021 peak was the roll-out of the jabs. Not only did many of the “number of factors” just discussed remain, there was also a remarkable correlation between this large surge in mortality and the widening distribution of alleged “Covid–19 vaccines”. Again, this unusual spike accounts for a significant proportion of the total excess mortality for 2021.
In 2022, the months March–June saw 188,313 deaths—19,035 more than in 2021—and the annual excess, above a higher five year average that included 2021, was reportedly 51,159.
According to the ONS, only around 5–6% of the 2022 deaths in England and Wales can possibly be attributed to Covid–19. As we wait for the ONS analysis of the 2022 statistics, it is notable that the questionable attribution of Covid–19 remains the focus of the ONS' "main points" in its weekly reports. Nevertheless, the ONS considers only the year 2020 to be a "a key measure" of the pandemic.
Why Covid–19 should still be the focus of the ONS’ weekly bulletins seems strange and is again at odds with the notion implied in the stated statistical perspective that it was only the 2020 death figures that the pandemic significantly impacted. In December 2022, Covid–19 was the eighth highest single cause of death registered. The leading cause of death in England and Wales during December 2022 was said to be "influenza and pneumonia”, not Covid–19.
It was in 2020 that influenza supposedly vanished from the face of the earth. Its reemergence, seemingly from nowhere, is surprising.
The second highest cause of December deaths, according to the ONS, was the category "symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions”. This was the leading cause of death in Wales. It was also said to be the leading cause of "excess" deaths.
The other causes of "excess deaths" were ischaemic heart disease, "ill-defined" heart failure, cardiac arrhythmia, cirrhosis of the liver, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, hypertensive disease, accidental falls and septicaemia. Yet none of these feature in the ONS’ "main points".
"Symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions" (SSIDC) was also the most common pre-existing condition mentioned on death certificates "involving" Covid–19. "Ill-defined" is the crucial component of a death attributed to the category SSIDC. These deaths were all chalked up as Covid–19 deaths, despite the fact that no-one could apparently identify what the decedent’s pre-existing conditions were and, presumably, had no idea what role the related SSIDC, whatever it was, played in their deaths.
Similarly, while the diagnosis "sudden adult—or arrhythmic—death syndrome" (SADS) does indicate that the decedent suffered heart failure, it fails, as does the diagnostic category SSIDC, to explain why the heart gave out. These terms tell us nothing, or very little, about why someone passed away.
Listing SSIDC as a leading cause of excess mortality is, at the very least, tantamount to saying that physicians, registrars and the statistical authorities don’t know why these people died. But we should not be shy of asking whether it possibly indicates some reason why they don't wish to say why they died.
We can safely anticipate that the pending official analysis of the 2022 statistics should note, at a minimum, that 45,000 of the excess deaths in England and Wales were caused by something other than Covid–19. If SSIDC is again cited as a leading cause, this would represent either a lack of knowledge about the cause of death in these cases or a reluctance to divulge it.
The current rate of increasing mortality stands at more than 10% above the newly elevated five-year average. With the significant increase in mortality in the first three weeks of 2023, this year is potentially set to have the same level of mortality we saw in the "year of the pandemic”.
Let us hope that isn't the case. Sadly, however, we have little reason to dismiss the possibility.
Political Nonchalance
Investigating the situation appears to hold little interest for the UK Government. While virtually nothing could have been more important than endlessly debating and highlighting Covid–19 deaths in 2020 and early 2021, the similar level of ongoing total excess mortality—characterised as more sustained, without the large spikes—is apparently unworthy of discussion among the political class today.
As British citizens still die in greater numbers, not only has there been practically no attempt by the Government to understand why; there also appears to be no serious discussion of the issue by national politicians. In a brief Oral Answers to Questions exchange in the House of Commons, a couple of MPs made some interesting observations about the mortality statistics. Other than that, there has been no commensurate parliamentary debate to reflect the obvious seriousness of the situation.
Labour's Debbie Abrams highlighted that the excess mortality is "disproportionately experienced by the most deprived”. Her Labour colleague, Andrew Gwynne, added:
There were 50,000 more deaths than we would otherwise have expected in 2022. Excluding the pandemic, that is the worst figure since 1951.
The independent MP Andrew Bridgen, who was falsely accused of antisemitism and had the Conservative whip removed after he questioned the claimed safety and efficacy of the Covid jabs, asked the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Maria Caulfield:
The Office for National Statistics has not issued mortality data by vaccination status since 31 May last year. Will the Minister confirm that her Department has collected that data for the rest of 2022 and inform the House when it will be published?
The Under-Secretary either didn't know the answer on the spot or did not wish to respond to Bridgen in front of Parliament’s cameras. Claiming she would write to Bridgen with this information, she acknowledged the increased death rates and told Parliament that there were multiple factors contributing to excess mortality and that these were "the same factors that have driven excess deaths across the United Kingdom and across Europe”.
As reported by UK Column, Caulfield said that she, as a government representative, deals "with facts" and went on to insist that there were "clinical reasons for excess deaths, not political ones”. The Under-Secretary's statement clearly indicates that the UK Government knows what is causing excess British deaths. How else could it rule out the possible impact of policy decisions as a contributory factor?
The UK Government may be clear about the clinical reasons that explain why people in this country are dying in greater numbers, but it has opted not to disclose those reasons either to Parliament or the public yet. Presumably, it has also been helpless to do anything about them.
Yet the same UK Government says that it can keep us all safe from global public health threats; a claim which is evidently contradicted by the data showing that it actually isn't.
During what may have been a pseudopandemic, a slew of policy decisions—some of the impacts of which we've just discussed—were rolled out in rapid succession to supposedly deal with the alleged health emergency. The same happened in countries around the world, notably in North America and Europe.
Unlike the Government, UK-based health experts are reportedly less certain about why people are currently dying in such large numbers. The UK Government has yet to tell the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Adrian Boyle, the cause of the high mortality rates. He said that the factors that have driven excess deaths, which Marie Caulfield MP has already identified, were "extremely difficult to determine”.
He suggested that it may have something to do with the fact that the NHS is collapsing. Dr Boyle said:
Our own analysis indicates that an estimated 300–500 patients are dying per week across the UK associated with long waiting times in emergency departments.
Professor Philip Banfield, Chairman of the British Medical Association, said that NHS waiting lists were a "national scandal”. Some, such as professor of medicine Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia, suggests that the sudden, inexplicable reemergence of influenza is to blame.
The NHS England chief strategy officer, Chris Hopson, suggested that "inclement weather and rising population numbers" could cause unprecedented "non-pandemic" excess mortality. However, he did say something sensible, when he ventured:
We need to be very careful about jumping to conclusions about excess mortality numbers and their cause without a full and detailed look at the evidence which is now under way.
As yet, NHS England hasn't reported its findings, but Hopson's point is a good one. The British people desperately need a full investigation into what's happening because, if early 2023 indications are anything to go by, the situation is deteriorating rapidly.
That is why a public petition was submitted calling for an investigation into the excess deaths that are not related to Covid–19. As Maria Caulfield intimated, it seems that the Government does know why excess deaths are increasing.
In its response, the Government stated:
Our analysis suggests that it is likely that a combination of factors has contributed to an increase in the number of non-Covid excess deaths in the latter part of 2022, including high flu prevalence and health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.
Referring to both ONS and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) estimates, the UK Government noted that OHID figures “differ” from ONS numbers because “they use different methodologies.” Again, we are faced with a somewhat confusing statistical picture.
The OHID estimates are for England only, excluding Welsh data. They also use the lower 2015–2019 five-year average. The OHID average does reflect the official claim that 2020–2023 are all “pandemic” years, and its statistics offer a breakdown of excess mortality by age group for the entire 2020–2023 period to date.
The UK Government seems to have already decided what some of the causes are: flu, for example. But its response to the petition doesn’t indicate that respiratory illness is the primary driver for the increased mortality:
OHID estimates show that for deaths registered in England during the whole of 2022, deaths involving four conditions were all over 10% higher than expected: heart failure (15% higher), cirrhosis and other liver diseases (14%), diabetes (12%) and ischaemic heart diseases (11%).
So, while the UK Government says that it knows why the mortality rate is so high, it continues to give conflicting explanations that aren’t much use to anyone.
OHID’s Concerning Estimates
When we look at the OHID excess mortality analysis, some unusual patterns emerge, especially when we contrast excess mortality rates by age group. The mortality spikes in the spring of 2020 and the early year winter of 2021 are observable in all but the youngest age group.
Yet other features stand out.
For the older age groups (>85, 75–84, 65–74), while Covid is said to be the primary cause of excess mortality in 2020 and 2021, the degree to which it officially impacts mortality decreases with age. This is as you might expect for a respiratory illness.
It is also apparent that persistent non-Covid excess mortality has been a feature throughout 2022 and into 2023, even among older people. As we move down to the 50–64 age group, it is clear that Covid–19 has not been the primary cause of this excess throughout most of 2022 for this cohort.
Non-Covid mortality has an increasing relative impact as we continue down the age groups. When we get to the youngest (0–24), the data becomes particularly alarming.
There is very little alleged Covid–19 mortality among the under-25s. Consequently, the supposed justification to vaccinate the young, regardless of the claims of the UK regulator, the MHRA, is highly dubious—especially in light of the doubtful accuracy of Covid–19 mortality attribution.
Sadly, the notable excess mortality among the youngest people in our society—on the record here, at least, for England—is a feature that emerged in mid-2021, apparently becoming entrenched throughout 2022 and into 2023. Even if we accept Covid–19 attribution, very few of these young deaths were caused by it.
While we anticipate the UK Government’s forthcoming “Major Conditions Strategy”, which will supposedly lay out how the Government is going to address this terrible reality, we can only surmise, given the Government’s own petition response, that younger people are dying in unusually high numbers for some as yet unspecified reason.
A cursory look at the mortality spikes we've seen over the last three years prompts us to consider another contributory factor. Contrary to Maria Caulfield’s assertions, the evidence strongly suggests that many of the reasons for both the sharp spikes in deaths and the continuing broad distribution of high excess mortality were and are political ones.
These political decisions, such as the ‘emergency use’ authorisation of experimental jabs that hadn't completed any clinical trials, may well have impacted mortality during the so-called pandemic. This needs to be investigated, and a failure to do so can only be perceived as suspicious.
The Non-Respiratory Mortality Trend
Euromomo collates mortality statistics from across Europe. It ascribes a Z-score to indicate deviation from baseline mortality. The picture that is building is of consistently increasing mortality.
When we look at this deviation in England and Wales over the last three years, we see large spikes above a "substantial increase"—but also that the deviation has persistently been above the normal range since the spring of 2020. Since mid-2021, the deviation has been at or above a "substantial increase" for the majority of the time, particularly in England.
England and Wales Z-score. Source: Euromomo
Since any official investigation into the increasing mortality is, so far, conspicious by its absence, we need to look towards independent scientists, statisticians and investigators to try to figure out what's going on. Detractors will say that these sources are unreliable. The problem is that, in regard to this absolutely essential investigation, there are no other sources.
As pointed out by Nick Bowler, writing for the Daily Sceptic, seasonal mortality variations are largely driven by respiratory illness. These are deaths that are attributable to “influenza-like illnesses” (ILIs), including Covid–19. But seasonal spikes don't explain the persistent deviation (increase) seen in the Euromomo statistics.
Therefore, if there is another underlying driver, it may be possible to identify what it is by looking at non-respiratory mortality (NRM). As Bowler explains:
Deaths from non-respiratory causes are projected to be a massive 10% higher than expected in 2022. Non-respiratory mortality typically varies little from year to year, changing by a maximum of just 1.3% in each of the six years from 2015 to 2020. However 2021 has registered a 3.72% increase and 2022 is projected to show a catastrophic 10.0% increase. Because it is usually so stable, non-respiratory mortality is a useful way of showing that the ongoing excess mortality currently being experienced in the U.K. is unprecedented and unrelated to normal seasonal variation.
Basing his analysis upon ONS data, Bowler notes:
The large spike in non-respiratory mortality during weeks 14–18 of 2020 (the first five weeks of the pandemic), which resulted in 11,817 non-respiratory excess deaths compared to the 2015–2019 average, is likely a result of Covid death counting errors plus some deaths due to pandemic interventions (withdrawal of treatment, neglect, isolation, etc.), as the rest of the year proceeds completely normally.
NRM for 2020. Source: Daily Sceptic
That is to say, the ONS data shows that the large spike seen in the spring of 2020, which accounts for almost the entire excess for the year, was "officially" recorded to include a simultaneous spike in apparent NRM.
This fact was not reported as avidly by the mainstream media. The sudden spike in NRM was not related to Covid–19, and yet occurred at the same time as “the pandemic”.
Nick Bowler suggests that this may be due to some under-counting of Covid–19 deaths and could also indicate the lethal impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). We have just discussed the many reasons why we might suspect that NPIs also contributed to the simultaneous spike in respiratory deaths, from a range of ILIs, and that Covid–19 numbers were actually exaggerated, not under-reported.
But with regard the NRM, even this isn't the most salient issue. Despite the ongoing "number of factors" blamed for the subsequent "excess mortality”, by the politicians and the "experts" reported by the mainstream media, NRM remained stable for most of 2020, beyond the spike.
This correlates with the cessation of many of the most notable NPIs and clinical practices that were only present during the 2020 spike. For example, the instruction not to convey vulnerable injured patients to hospital was rescinded from mid-April 2020 onwards, and replaced in May with guidance that stated that hospital Accident & Emergency departments should merely “aim to manage the condition without admission to a hospital bed”. Midazolam prescribing also returned to relatively normal levels in May 2020.
Looking at the period after the spring 2020 anomaly, Bowler considered the increased mortality trend that began to emerge in early to mid-2021. He assigned a mortality displacement (MD) adjustment, advancing the registered date of death by approximately nine weeks.
The MD was necessary for analytical purposes because the most vulnerable—dispassionately, but accurately, described as "dry tinder”—would probably have died anyway within a few months. Their slightly premature deaths, therefore, do not appear in the statistical mortality distribution where we might otherwise expect them to, thus skewing the expected pattern of seasonable variability. In order to make a meaningful comparison with “non-pandemic” years, the MD was included in Bowler’s analysis.
NRMs took off erratically in March 2021 and became a firm "factor" contributing to increasing mortality in the second half of 2021. This is seen in the Euromomo data, and Bowler's analysis revealed that NRM (accounting for MD—and contrasting with the "non-pandemic" 2015–2019 average) has been the major driver for the increasing mortality we have seen in 2021, 2022 and now well into 2023.
NRM + MD for 2021 and 2022. Source: Daily Sceptic
In his further research into the ONS data, Nick Bowler noted another clear reason why we might consider that the attribution of Covid–19 was potentially unwarranted in a high proportion of claimed cases:
To highlight the overcounting of Covid deaths, one only need compare the data for ‘deaths due to’ against ‘deaths with’ for Covid–19, and contrast it with the figures for other respiratory diseases. For Covid, around 82% of deaths ‘with Covid’ are claimed to be ‘due to’ Covid over the course of the pandemic, yet with all other respiratory diseases only 34% of deaths ‘with’ the disease are claimed to be ‘due to’ it.
This is almost certainly due to the fact that the WHO changed the procedures for recording the ICD10 codes, but only for Covid–19. Suspected and even probable cases of Covid–19 (coded UO7.2) were directed to be entered onto death certificates as "confirmed" (UO7.1). Thus, Covid–19 was far more likely than any other cause, whether respiratory or non-respiratory, to be recorded as the "underlying" cause of death.
Have we been lied to?
In light of everything we have discussed, we have good reason to question whether the whole official pandemic narrative is, in fact, false. If so, the justification for the non-pharmaceutical interventions, those unaccountable policies that appear to have led to the deaths of thousands of people in the United Kingdom, and the justification for the “emergency authorisation” of jabs with questionable efficacy and safety, were also false. These deaths may have been avoidable—and, if that is the case, it appears that government policy is directly to blame.
Bowler then looked at the cumulative levels of "excess" NRM throughout the period 2020 to early 2023. As this was an analysis of annual mortality distribution, he dispensed with the MD adjustment to focus solely upon the total NRM excess. His analysis of the data starkly demonstrates the very strong correlation between increasing excess NRM and the jab roll-out.
NRM "excess" for 2021–2023. Source: Daily Sceptic
Unlike respiratory illnesses, which disproportionately account for mortality among the old, non-respiratory mortality—such as cancer, heart disease and suicide—affects younger people to a greater extent than the old. This finding is supported by the OHID data and explains why actuaries are now considering lowering British life expectancy.
As repeatedly noted by UK Column and others, correlation is not causation. It does, however, indicate that the Covid injections have emerged as a possible contributory factor for the increasing mortality trend observed since mid 2021. In addition, we can safely state that the dangerous non-pharmaceutical interventions, imposed as they were prior to the jab roll-out, and the excessive use of medication in measures already known to be lethal are possibly the prime candidates for causation of the sharp spring 2020 anomaly.
We should also consider that Britain’s systemic healthcare problems, which were tending toward increasing mortality prior to 2020, have also been exacerbated by the Government’s response to the alleged pandemic.
We do not know, nor can we know at this juncture, precisely why people in the United Kingdom are dying in unusually large numbers. As it seems that the UK Government is potentially culpable for a high proportion of these deaths, a government-led public inquiry is unlikely to provide any meaningful answers.
In order genuinely to investigate the truth, we need the resources of independent universities, the statistical authorities, science and the medical profession to be dedicated to a real investigation. We may also need the courts to force the reluctant to divulge information if necessary.
Nick Bowler was absolutely on the money when he wrote:
[S]omething extraordinary has been occurring in the trends in core mortality since spring 2021, notably around the time of the Covid vaccination rollout. This worrying trend is currently accelerating and requires an urgent inquiry into whether the vaccinations themselves are playing a part or, if not, what is going on.
While we have been given a narrative about a pandemic disease, an equally plausible explanation is evident. There are other factors that could also account for the mortality patterns that we have seen over the last three years, with or without the presence of any novel respiratory disease.
Unless these factors are ruled out, following a fully independent public-led investigation, there is little reason to simply accept the pandemic story that the Government and the mainstream media would have us believe.
