As I said in an earlier post, there were 6082 deaths more than the five-year average for week 14, yet there were only 3475 deaths recorded in the Covid-19 (either from or with) category for week 14. So where did those two-and-a-half thousand deaths come from? Is Covid-19 being under-reported, or are there extra deaths that are being caused by the lockdown, or a bit of both?
There is a section on the ONS weekly deaths spreadsheet that deals with place of death. Here’s a snip of the figures (click to enlarge):
Compared to the previous month we’ve got an increase in hospital deaths of about 2800, an increase in home deaths by about 1100, and an increase in care home deaths of about 1300. Everywhere else (including hospices) looks about the same or only a bit higher.
The extra hospital deaths seem to be explained by the extra Covid-19 numbers in hospitals, as they are roughly similar. Last month there were 5105 deaths in hospitals (in England and Wales), this month there were 7884, an increase of 2679. But Covid-19 deaths in hospitals increased from 510 to 3110, an increase of 2609. So the extra hospital deaths were likely to have been Covid-19 deaths.
What about the extra care home deaths? Hardly any care home deaths are classed as Covid-19 deaths. There were 3769 deaths in care homes in week 14 (up from 2489 last month, so an increase of 1280), but only 195 of those 3769 deaths were classed as Covid-19 deaths. I think most likely that most of these extra deaths are down to Covid-19, and that Covid-19 in these cases is being underreported. Dr Malcom Kendrick has a blog post supporting this view here.
As I mentioned earlier, in one care home that I visit, they recently had eight deaths in seven days. Were these COVID deaths? Who knows for sure. No-one was tested. No-one is tested. The staff are not tested. I have patients who have died quickly. What do I put on the death certificate? COVID? Well I cannot, not really, because I have no idea if they had COVID or not.
It seems clear that many, many, COVID deaths in care homes will not even be registered as COVID deaths, so the figures are almost certainly worse here than are being reported.
Most of these deaths will be, however, people who were on their last legs anyway. Covid-19 just weakened them and finished them off, in the way that the flu, or even a cold, can. Not that makes it any better for them or their loved ones, I wish they could have had some extra time in their life. Unfortunately we can expect a lot more of this in the next few weeks, as Covid-19 has got into a lot of care homes, so a lot of people near the end of their lives are going to have their lives shortened.
Things are much murkier with the increased deaths in homes, though. (Not care homes, homes as in where people live.) We had 3865 deaths at home in week 14, up from 2786 in week 13, so that’s an increase of 1079. But there were only 120 deaths out of that 3865 that were classed as Covid-19 deaths. I expect some of these deaths were caused by Covid-19 finishing some people off without it even being obvious that the person had Covid-19, but we don’t have much hard evidence, as far as I’m aware, as to how many people will be in this category.
But it is a concern that maybe the lockdown itself is killing people, people who are taken seriously ill but who don’t want to go to hospital because they’ve been told to stay away, or who think hospital will be worse for them because they’ll catch Covid-19 there. This is not just pure speculation on my part, this is the concern of A&E chiefs and senior medics too:
The coronavirus crisis has led to a sharp rise in the number of seriously ill people dying at home because they are reluctant to call for an ambulance, doctors and paramedics have warned.
Minutes of a remote meeting held by London A&E chiefs last week obtained by the Guardian reveal that dozens more people than usual are dying at home of a cardiac arrest – potentially related to coronavirus – each day before ambulance crews can reach them.
And as the chair of the Royal College of GPs said that doctors were noticing a spike in the number of people dying at home, paramedics across the country said in interviews that they were attending more calls where patients were dead when they arrived.
The A&E chiefs’ minutes said that on the weekend of 4-5 April the number of 999 calls in which someone had had a cardiac arrest rose from 55 a day in normal times to 140. Most of the people concerned died, doctors said.
The minutes also reveal acute concern among senior medics that seriously ill patients are not going to A&E or dialling 999 because they are afraid or do not wish to be a burden.
“People don’t want to go near hospital,” the document said. “As a result salvageable conditions are not being treated.”
Brendan O’Neill at Spiked says:
The figures are extraordinary. In Week 14 of 2019, there were close to 160,000 emergency admissions to English hospitals (which was a higher-than-average number). In Week 14 of this year there were around 60,000.
Sure a lot of A&E cases are drunks on a Saturday night who’ve managed to hurt themselves, but 100 000 less? Over 60% less people coming in? You only need a small proportion of that 100 000 — 1% to be precise — to be cases of serious illness where the person dies because they didn’t come in for there to be 1000 deaths caused by the lockdown.
Update: I’m still working through graphs and other stuff that people have sent me, thanks for all that. Thanks also to recent readers who have been buying my book, and those who have sent some money my way via Kofi and Patreon, it is greatly appreciated, I’m putting all this research in for nothing.
Update 2: A worrying news story (from the comments) about how scared care home workers are fleeing care homes and leaving residents to die. I haven’t heard any reports of this happening in the UK, but at least in Canada and some parts of Europe we can say that Covid-19 hysteria is killing people in care homes.
The deaths in Canada were discovered late last week at Résidence Herron, a private home for seniors in Montreal, after the local health authority, alarmed by staff shortages and the spread of coronavirus at the home, took control of the residence.
They found dehydrated residents lying listless in bed, unfed for days, with excrement seeping out of their diapers.
“I’d never seen anything like it in my 32-year nursing career,” said Loredana Mule, a nurse on the team. “It was horrific — there wasn’t enough food to feed people, the stench could’ve killed a horse.”
After she left the home, she said, she collapsed in her car and wept.
A skeleton staff of two nurses had been left to care for a private residence with nearly 150 beds, she said. The remaining staff had fled amid the outbreak of the coronavirus, leaving patients, some paralyzed or with other chronic illnesses, to fend for themselves.
Also in the story:
“In Spain, soldiers sent to disinfect nursing homes found people abandoned, or even dead, in their beds.”
29 thoughts on “Is the lockdown killing people?”
Hi Hector,
Is is reasonable to assume that all of the COVID deaths in carehomes & in hospitals are excess? This would assume that all of the deaths with COVID are above the average, and that nobody who died, who would ‘usually’ have died, was recorded as COVID 19. Given that this seems unlikely, I’d imagine that there are more than 2.5 thousand unexplained deaths.
But I agree that it looks like carehome deaths are increasing; we might even get another peak from it. It’s not really a good reason to keep lockdown though, the same has happened in Sweden, Italy, France and Spain with different levels of lockdown.
Has there been any data on where people are catching the virus? I’m mainly referring to the people who get sick enough to die. Are they catching it in the community, or are they picking it up while in hospital?
I guess what I’m asking is: are conditions in our hospitals at least partly responsible for the CFR?
“dozens more people than usual are dying at home of a cardiac arrest – potentially related to coronavirus – each day before ambulance crews can reach them.”
A question relevant to this is “Is the average time taken for a paramedic to reach a patient longer now than it was before the lockdown?”. Additional measures taken to try to determine whether the cause of an emergency is Covid-19, and for protection of paramedics, such as donning of PPE, mean that there is additional delay being introduced into the process, and sometimes those few extra minutes may be crucial.
“Is the average time taken for a paramedic to reach a patient longer now than it was before the lockdown?”
I would have thought that delays due to heavy traffic are less likely at the moment.
“What about the extra care home deaths?”
This story via Swiss Propaganda Research reports on many instances of care home staff “doing a runner”, and leaving the elderly to fend for themselves:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/world/canada/montreal-nursing-homes-coronavirus.html
Also, via SPR:
“8 MORE Experts Questioning the Coronavirus Panic”
https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/17/8-more-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/
And a very interesting German VT video (with English subtitles) describing one hospital's approach to treating CV patients:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPlEUAVjxV8
They, like the US surgeon I posted a link to yesterday, do not rush to "ventilate" – instead, look at other symptoms & parameters first.
Sir John Redwood making a point I’ve seen here i think.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2020/04/19/hospitals-and-isolation/
An interesting take on the effect of lockdown on job losses ans the economy in the USA. Some uniformed comments emotion and actuarial/economic matters but that’s to be expected.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/18/whats-causing-job-loss/
Other active cause of deaths at home I’ve had recent family experience of is a more sinister aspect. That is people telephoning their GP and 111 and asking for advice/home visit and the visit being refused because of the infectious Covid risk or it is assumed that Covid is the cause and they are told to stay at home.
Oh dear.
So essentially… we have been paying taxes for the NHS our whole working lives. And now when an actual disease has appeared, we are ordered to stay away and die alone, lest we bring our filthy contamination into the orderly world of the surgeries and hospitals. Or – God forbid! – lest we infect any doctors or nurses.
Still… as Will Rogers said long ago, “Be happy you don’t get all the government you’re paying for”.
Maybe the only thing worse than getting nothing for your taxes is getting something for your taxes.
The topic was thoroughly explored 40 years ago by “Yes, Minister!”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0751815/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
We have to remember that the numbers on location of death refer to Date of Registration, not Actual Date of Death. ONS data show that registrations of death fell behind actual deaths during Weeks 12 & 13, and then registrations exceeded actual deaths in Week 14 as ONS tried to catch up with the disrupting effects of the lockdown.
With that proviso, the increases in registered deaths in different locations from Week 13 to 14 don’t seem to suggest any major overall change in where deaths are recorded. For the big 3 locations —
Hospital registered deaths increased by 54%
Care Home registered deaths increased by 51%
Home registered deaths increased by 39%
It is quite possible that different delays in registering deaths which occurred in different locations are yielding a distorted picture. It seems quite reasonable that the focus on C-19 may result in increased deaths from other causes, but the data so far does not seem to be adequate to provide a definitive conclusion. Let’s see what Week 15 brings.
My father (a chartered accountant) sent me this link, a detailed analysis of the furlough scheme and its implications for unemployment:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/04/18/we-have-a-massive-and-multi-dimensioned-unemployment-crisis-waiting-to-happen-and-no-one-seems-to-be-talking-about-it/
Is this a joke? This is a link to Richard Murphy’s blog.
No, it wasn’t meant as a joke, just a take on the economic problems the lockdown’s causing.
You’re not a Tim Worstall reader, then?
“Lest we bring our filthy contamination into the orderly world of the surgeries and hospitals”
Precisely what “Protect The NHS” implies…
No, but I’ll look him up!
Registrations of deaths are always behind actual deaths. It is built in to the system because the statutory requirement is to register within five days, hence, allowing for weekends and time to check the data the weekly reports are issued on a tuesday, 11 days behind close of play on the friday of the week reported. Attempting to publish by date of death would mean that the end of each week would always be under-reported on first issue. The week 14 table by date of death shows that there were another 6,325 deaths in week 14 that were not recorded by that 3rd April close, but were received in time to be included as ‘ONS by actual date to 11th April’. So there will be 6,325 in the week 15 report from that alone.
http://djclark.co.uk/download/Dates-w14.pdf
Correction, 6,325 is my misreading of cumulative values, it looks like the week 14 lag to appear in the week 15 report is 2,112.
Depends on one’s assessment of Tim Worstall, doesn’t it? I gave up on old Tim because of his unshakeable religious commitment to (effectively Unilateral) Free Trade. Perhaps now he might see the flaw in importing most of our essential medications from China?
Whatever you think of Tim’s love of free trade, you have to admit he regularly shows up the absurdities in Richard Murphy’s rubbish.
I’ve never heard of him before this, but “… the paradoxical requirement that those furloughed do absolutely nothing …” is completely wrong, and doesn’t say much for his “detailed analysis”. I hope he’s not really an accountant giving that advice to customers.
Well done Mr Drummond, well done
“…and Fifty sixtly all attacking China & WHO are wrong, Trump & Putin created the virus…”
@D Brown on Sunday 19th April 2020 at 11:51
No. What is happening is peeps not phoning 999 as soon as they have heart attack, stroke etc as obeying “Don’t go to A&E Gov edict”. Condition worsens and eventually they phone, but too late.
I’d imagine Sepsis, Meningitis, Appendicitis, Bladder and Kidney infection deaths also up
Covered by Dr Max:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8223733
And yet despite everything the media is doubling down on scaremongering by reporting one inconclusive report about reinfection as if its gospel truth that Covid can reinfect anyone so no one is safe ever
I’m not given to conspiracy, but the narrative is so relentless on this you do start to wonder. It’s either that, or the media is now just made up of infants who are terrified of their own shadows.
Your comment about people not phoning 999 in time seems sound to me, but it does not contradict my point about the changes to standard process leading to longer time taken to treat the patient – which I, sadly, know to be absolutely true.
An earlier point about the fact that less traffic will help decrease response times is also true, but this will only affect a minority of calls in any significant way.
Well the logical conclusion of that fact, were it to be true, is that lockdowns are pointless, we are all going to get this virus multiple times and its either going to kill us at some point or it isn’t. We can’t lockdown indefinitely otherwise there will be no economy, or tax revenue to fund the sainted NHS with, so we might as just well release the controls and let everyone get on with it.
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