For the week ending Friday January 8th 2021, here is a review of the daily reported NHS England figures on SARS-Cov-2 (Covid 19) 'new' deaths.
All statistics taken from NHS England official reporting available online here, (along with a number of other statistical reports on various NHS activities);
Also now including an update on recent 'new cases' figures from the governments own 'coronavirus dashboard'.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/?_ga=2.58498792.313126479.1601306538-867402.1589210068
(Numbers of 'new' deaths in the regions other than England are recorded separately so are NOT represented here, nor are deaths in 'other settings' such as Care Homes.
Figures released by the ONS at a later date will include these additional statistics - it has been accountable for roughly an additional 30% - 40% on top of the NHS England numbers)
(Figures supplied by NHS England date back to the beginning of March 2020 when the UK recorded it's first day with more than 50 deaths.
The figures released daily include deaths from the day on which they happened, so can be from any previous day
NOT from just within the previous 24 hours)
DATA COLLECTION BY NHS ENGLAND ON DEATHS - CLARIFICATIONS.
Clarification #1
"The total announced file is updated daily and contains information on the deaths of patients
who have died in hospitals in England and either tested positive for COVID-19,
or where no positive test result was received for COVID-19, but COVID-19 was mentioned on their death certificate"
So the data includes deaths as.... 'with C19'.... even if no positive test has been done!
Clarification #2
It was officially confirmed months ago that NHS England figures had been over-reported due to the fact that a significant number of people were being recorded as dying from SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19),
when in fact they had died of some other unrelated ailment, but their death happened some time after they had tested positive but recovered.
This explains why we had seen deaths from weeks and weeks beforehand appearing in the figures released daily.
It was reported that an adjustment was made to the figures to account for the mis-recorded deaths,
(adjusted down by 5340 using a 28 day cut-off period, which brought the existing total down to around 37,000 deaths at the time - the government were advised to use a 21 day cut-off but decided on 28 days)
We are, however, still seeing deaths included in the daily reports which come from longer than 28 days ago.
Clarification #3
It has been reported that a significant number of cases of infection, and deaths attributed to Covid-19, particularly in the earlier (peak) stages of the pandemic in the UK, were 'double-reported'.
This occurred in cases in which someone had received a positive test whilst 'in the community', and then went to hospital where they again received a positive test.
Not only was their test double-counted, if they also died then their death was double counted.
It was apparently thought to be correct procedure at the time.
I have not seen yet whether there is a plan to make an adjustment for these double-counts.
So even the NHS reporting is not as accurate as it could/should be.
(the historical numbers I show on this update have not been adjusted - assume that reported deaths on dates up to the August 15th are approximately 10% less)
CASES/TESTING INFORMATION;
A documentary on TV in November exposed the failings in the current testing labs whereby cross contamination of samples was common.
(Now further backed up by the fact that many staff at the Lighthouse Lab in Milton Keynes are having to self-isolate (during December) due to infection, including 20 of the 70 testing staff)
These cross contaminations lead to more false positive results than would otherwise be the case for those test methods, so this is inflating the count.
It has been confirmed that a significant proportion of the testing being carried out is 'repeat testing' of individuals, either that have previously tested positive (done to see how long it lasts), or those working in
care situations (to establish infection free status), so this is inflating the count.
Testing continues to increase week-on-week, and unfortunately
MORE TESTS = MORE CASES, with the following results;
Yesterdays 'new cases' number, 68,053
(Last weeks update gave the previous day figure as 53,285)
The 68,053 came by way of 619,941 tests being carried out.
Which equates to
10.9% of tests giving a positive result, so no increase in real terms over previous weeks, in fact
a big drop compared to the 3 weeks immediately before Christmas when the percentage was nearing 15%!
'Tiered' restrictions came into force on Monday Sept 14th, followed by a new 'Lockdown 2' from November 5th, and then returning to stricter 'tiered' areas
(see further below for more details).
These restrictions all came about due to advice from SAGE group, however, the advice has been proven to be based on out-of-date data, has been 'worst case scenario', and has not been reacted to with any reference to the economic and other health effects being created.
As has been addressed elsewhere, the current 'PCR' testing is also producing many 'false positives'.
"The Lancet" shows research establishing a False Positive Rate (FPR) of around 4%, so if 4% of 500,000 are false positives then that is 20,000.
A significant proportion of the reported 'new cases' then.
Bear this in mind when looking at the figure of reported 'new cases' (as above).
Whitty and Vallance went on TV on Monday 21/9 (no questions allowed afterwards).
They suggested cases would be doubling weekly, leading to 50,000 cases daily by the middle of October (leading to 4,000 deaths per day!)
(on that day the reported number of 'new cases' was 3899 (but since then recalculated to show just over 4000), so using their estimation we should be seeing
nearly 256 million daily cases in the UK by now!!!!!!!
Which was clearly just preposterous.
That would basically mean the whole of the UK would be infected
4 times by now.
My concern is that the numbers of new deaths are now including seasonal flu as C19 (see below)
As a result of continued pressure from SAGE and other advisers, Boris Johnson announced on Saturday 31/10 that we would be subjected to a 2nd 'lockdown' period, lasting 4 weeks, from November 5th to December 2nd, even though, as we can see from the official figures, numbers of deaths and cases peaked, levelled off, and began to drop, before the 31/10 in some areas.
During the accompanying televised briefing, charts and data were presented which
WITHIN HOURS were shown to be data which was 3 weeks old, and incorrect, and misleading, forcing clarifications and corrections to be made the following day, and Whitty and Vallance being called to present information to the 'select committee' on Tuesday Nov 3rd.
However this did not prevent the government vote which was held on Wednesday Nov 4th from going against the lockdown, which went ahead the following day.
A further vote happened in the House of Commons, on December 2nd, in relation to the introduction of a new set of 'tiered' restrictions to be brought in the following day.
It was reported that up to 100 (ish) MPs would vote against, including tory backbenchers which have formed the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) after demanding a cost/benefit analysis to be produced beforehand.
Ultimately only 50+ voted against (not enough to stop the new restrictions from coming into force), but there were debates held in the House of Commons beforehand with many strong arguments against.
Sir Kier Starmer instructed Labour MPs to abstain.
This was reviewed on December 16th with more areas moved into stricter restrictions.
A 'Tier 4' was created and introduced during the Christmas Week for many areas, with no apparent end in sight.
It has now also come to light that, yet again, the previously disgraced
Professor Neil Ferguson has been advising the government again with 'models' which are exaggerated.
The UK has now been put into another 'Lockdown' period (as of Jan 6th) which has been 'pencilled in' to last until March 31st (although the government advise that some restrictions are likely to be lifted earlier than that).
However, this Lockdown was brought in before parliament was given the opportunity to scrutinise, debate, or vote on it. Ultimately only a handful of MPs voted against it.
Additionally, the ambition to vaccinate 22 million people by Easter was stated (which was amended later to say 13.5m by 'mid-february', but we'll stick with 22m by Easter).
That being the case, and with the number already vaccinated as of Thursday 7th Jan being stated as 1.5 million, the following would need to happen;
22m - 1.5m = 20.5m left to vaccinate.
Days left until Easter Sunday = 87.
20.5m divided by 87 = 235,632 (and a bit).
So over 230,000 people will need to be vaccinated every day to achieve that number.
And each day that quantity is NOT achieved, the number needed during each following day increases.
In my opinion that is totally unachieveable.
THIS WEEKS FIGURES, NOTABLE STATISTICS AND RELATED INFORMATION/REMARKS;
3777 reported 'new' deaths this past week.
Last weeks update total was 2518, so this week is an increase of 1259 on the previous weekly total, which somehow is EXACTLY a 50% increase.
Also, bear in mind, that due to '
reporting lag' from over the Christmas and New Year period, a significant quantity of these reports come from longer ago than what you would usually see in the daily reporting figures.
There were no days during this past week in which the report released for that day recorded ZERO deaths during the previous 24 hour period.
(During the time before this winter increase there had been 22 separate days in which, during the preceding 24 or 48 hours, there had been zero deaths reported)
The most reported 'new' deaths in one day, from one site, during this past week was
32.
This was achieved by DARTFORD AND GRAVESHAM NHS TRUST in the data released on January 8th.
The oldest reported 'new' death during this past week is from
November 5th (over 8 weeks ago! - well beyond the '28 days' cut off period, and yet being reported as a 'new death'!)
This was reported by EAST SUFFOLK AND NORTH ESSEX NHS FOUNDATION TRUST in the data released on January 5th
The last day previously which recorded more than 50 total deaths was June 24th, for which the total stands at 54.
The highest daily total of 'new deaths' recently is now
493 on Tuesday January 5th
It is common though for mortality to increase around Christmastime.
However the '7 day average' remains stable.
The day with the lowest total of deaths since April is Saturday August 29th, for which the total is 2.
Thursday this past week reporting 89 'new' deaths for the whole of England, however, as the daily figure is communicated to NHS England at 5pm each day the total for the whole of yesterday is not complete.
Also, reporting over the Christmas & New Year period has been somewhat inconsistent/laggy.
Totals of deaths by age group for this past weeks released data;
0-19 = 0
20-39 = 24
40-59 = 242
60-78 = 1348
80+ = 2163
(92.96% of the total number of 'new' deaths are now 'over 60', a decrease on last weeks %, which was 94.24%)
(57.3% of the total were over 80, a slight decrease on last weeks which was 58%)
NOTE: Now that the vaccination programme has been underway since December 7th, and the groups being prioritised have been the 80+ and carers,
we should see a noticeable, and significant, drop in the numbers of deaths in the 80+ age group - at time of writing this note (Jan 9th) the percentage of 80+ deaths stands at 57.3%. If we DO NOT see a drop in that percentage, then it can only mean that the vaccines are not effective.
It has come to my attention that the ONS included information in a report in early October that it would no longer be producing separate reports for C19 and Influenza.
There was no further information to indicate whether or not this meant that the C19 deaths and 'Flu deaths would be combined into one figure, or if the separate reports would be merged into one report but keeping the totals separate?
If the figures for C19 and 'Flu are going to be combined into one total then that renders all future comparisons void as we will no longer be 'comparing apples with apples'.
My concern now is that this might have already been introduced and is therefore artificially inflating the statistics as we are NOT seeing hardly any seasonal 'flu deaths now, when typically at this time of year they increase rapidly!
Below are the running totals for 'existing' + 'new' = new total - where no new figures have been reported for a day then no calculation has been entered.
(This weekly update shows the additions from all the reports published during this preceding week, in which the deaths fall within the period since
Thursday April 2nd, the date I started logging the numbers officially released)
Sorry that this is now quite a long list of dates and numbers - please scroll to the bottom for the most recent statistics.
(As the data prior to the lowest recorded figures during early August rarely changes now, I have removed that from this weekly report.
The 'highest' figure during the early weeks of the pandemic was on April 4th, with 1,111.)
S 5 (August 1st)
S 14
M 11
T 8
W 5
T 7
F 6
S 7 (August 8th)
S 6
M 8
T 11
W 4
T 4
F 5
S 11 (August 15th)
S 3
M 10
T 8
W 3
T 3
F 6
S 5 (August 22nd)
S 10
M 5
T 10
W 10
T 7
F 5
S 2 (August 29th)
S 4
M 7
T 3
W 9
T 4
F 6
S 8 (Sept 5th)
S 7
M 9
T 11
W 7
T 9
F 7
S 8 (Sept 12th)
S 14
M 11
T 12
W 16
T 20
F 19
S 11 (Sept 19th)
S 24
M 16
T 25
W 38
T 24
F 22
S 30 (Sept 26th)
S 34
M 39
T 35
W 41
T 43
F 48
S 38 (Oct 3rd)
S 38
M 40
T 50
W 58
T 57
F 50
S 61 (Oct 10th)
S 76
M 72
T 71
W 81
T 91
F 91
S 130 (Oct 17th)
S 91
M 116
T 131
W 198
T 145
F 144
S 133 (Oct 24th)
S 164
M 170
T 168
W 178
T 209
F 206
S 215 (Oct 31st)
S 222
M 222
T 208
W 235
T 216+1=217
F 232
S 272 (Nov 7th)
S 255
M 310+1=311
T 267
W 236+1=237
T 271+1=272
F 262
S 290+1=291 (Nov 14th)
S 295
M 270
T 293
W 324+1=325
T 294
F 300+1=301
S 266 (Nov 21st)
S 316+1+2=319
M 295
T 311
W 323
T 283
F 283+2=285
S 308 (Nov 28th)
S 311+1=312
M 264
T 268
W 263+1+1=265
T 298
F 287
S 252 (Dec 5th)
S 266+1=267
M 249
T 286
W 267
T 288+1=289
F 280+1+2=283
S 288+2+1=291 (Dec 12th)
S 270+1+2+5+1=279
M 288+1+2+4=295
T 296+1+1+1+3+1=303
W 259+3+1+1=264
T 314+3+1+4=322
F 302+6+2=310
S 283+1+2+1=287 (Dec 19th)
S 307+1+1+3+2+1=315
M 351+1=352
T 328+3+1+2+1+4+2=341
W 319+7+2+1+2+11+1+1=344
T 315+6+4+4+6+1+1=337
F 357+16+6+3+3+5+4+3=397
S 372+8+10+8+2+7+5+2=414 (Dec 26th - Boxing Day)
S 371+10+12+12+5+5+8+9+1=433
M 352+6+14+3+8+16+7+5=411
T 336+25+12+9+21+7+7+2=419
W 237+101+18+16+25+22+13+5=437
T 42+157+93+36+53+29+21+22=453
F 32+164+66+76+56+29+17=440
S 47+192+94+43+32+23=431 (Jan 2nd)
S 33+210+108+39+27=417
M 67+252+109+63=491
T 71+276+146=493
W 88+303=391
T 89