The UK Government Changed How They Calculate Deaths, And There's Still An Excess
Registered deaths in the UK exceed the new baseline...
In February, the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) did something rather curious.
The government institute implemented a drastic change in how it calculates excess deaths. Moving away from the simpler five-year average, they adopted a new model that reportedly accounts for factors such as population age and size.
This change dramatically lowered the reported excess deaths for 2023 from 31,442 to 10,994, marking a 65% reduction.
The revision also affected historical data, with post-2020 years showing a decrease in excess deaths by over 40,000. A vigorous debate about the method’s accuracy followed.
In a statement, the ONS claimed that the updated model more accurately reflects demographic shifts, including an aging population and declining mortality rates.
However, experts like Professor Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson voiced concerns. They criticised the model for its complexity and reliance on mathematical assumptions that might skew results.
The timing also raised eyebrows. Occurring in February, the adjustments came amidst ongoing calls for a parliamentary debate on excess death statistics. Some argued that the new figures conveniently minimised the political repercussions for the government by reducing the reported excess deaths in 2020.
There were also questions about the fluctuations in annual death figures with the new model. Demographic trends, which supposedly justified the revisions, change gradually, not dramatically, suggesting that the modifications were far too aggressive.
In crude terms, the ONS set a higher baseline for excess deaths effectively lowering past figures while anticipating higher future numbers.
If the figures don’t support you’re conclusions, change the figures, or so the saying goes...
On May 1st, the ONS released data showing registered deaths in England and Wales for the week ending April 19, 2024, were 1.9% above the expected number—an increase of 224 deaths.
However, according to researcher Rustler, who posted annotated analysis of the data on his X profile, the increase would be closer to 11.4% under the old method.
This was a continuation from the previous week, where excess deaths were 16.4% above the baseline - again using the old 5-year-average.
In April, controversy further escalated when Professor Sir Ian Diamond, head of the ONS, resisted MPs’ requests to reanalyse mortality data by vaccination status using different parameters than initially applied.
Here is a full copy of the letter he sent in response to MPs:
Amongst a slew of bureaucratic jargon, Diamond insisted that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) rigorously reviews serious outcomes reported through the Yellow Card Reporting scheme.
Yet, investigative efforts by former civil servant Nick Hunt revealed significant lapses in the MHRA’s follow-ups on vaccine-related death reports. According to Hunt’s findings, the MHRA did not respond to half of the death reports associated with the Moderna vaccine and lacked a systematic process for assessing causation.
He summarised:
In reply to FOI 23/379 MHRA said that of 121 Yellow Cards for the Moderna vaccine with a fatal outcome, MHRA followed up 65 with healthcare professionals, of which 42 went unanswered. Hardly ‘all’ and hardly thorough.
In reply to FOI 23/400 it said that it does not hold records about the number of causation assessments it has made or what the assessments were, nor does it even have a process for assessment of causation. Not very convincing, is it?
How can we trust an organisation to accurately undertake complex mathematical estimations when it is headed by a man who blatantly disregards negligence?
Do you think if things stay the way they are our best days are ahead of us?
Are you going to sit down and watch as our media parrot narratives that lead to yet more invasive, authoritarian, censorious policy?
If you want to do something today to help change that, you can opt for a paid subscription and help journalists like me attempting to stop it.
It’s abit like tax avoidance… only in reverse.... you find you owe more than you realised so employ a number cruncher to alter the totals…to let yourself off the hook as far as authorities are concerned… but it’s a bit rich when the government itself change horses to let a mathematical formula remove certain data from the results to reassure everyone looking that even though more people are dying than usual.. their numbers tell a different story to the facts .. I think the CPS would call it fraud.