Covid, flu and excess deaths in Northern Ireland

Written by Norman Fenton and Kathy Gray on September 10, 2024. Posted in Current News

Thanks to the tireless work of Kathy Gray, we now have responses to FOIs regarding Covid deaths in Northern Ireland that corroborate the main thesis in our book.

Namely that covid was never a deadly pandemic, that many flu deaths were likely classified as covid deaths and that the responses to covid continue to cause excess deaths and extended waiting lists for critical illnesses.

The key points:

• In the entire 4-year period of covid up to March 2024 there were a total of just 275 deaths due to covid alone and that figure includes deaths which mentioned covid with pneumonia.
• In the 15-44 age group there were just 8 deaths. Moreover, the youngest person in this age group was 38, so no one younger than 38 died from covid in Northern Ireland in the entire 4 year period.
• Flu suddenly disappeared during the main covid mortality period March 2020 – Oct 2022 and then just as suddenly reappeared after that.
• In addition to continued excess death numbers, the data suggest a large increase in deaths from chronic diseases, which may be due to lockdown measures and the decision in March 2020 to shut down all medical diagnosis and treatments for all diseases including cancer. There is also evidence of significantly increased waiting times for treatment of diseases like cancer.

Covid Deaths

On 28 March 2024 the Department of Finance (DoF) responded to Kathy’s request for information about total number of covid ‘related’ and covid caused deaths:

I can confirm that the Department holds the information requested.

Of the 5,674 Covid-19 related deaths that had occurred up to 15 March 2024 (accounting for registrations up to and including 20 March 2024), 275 had Covid-19 as the only cause of death mentioned on the death certificate. The remaining 5,399 covid-19 related deaths had at least one other cause of death mentioned on the death certificate.

The key tables they provided were these:

The full response is here:

March_2024_Dof_2024_0144_Response

Note especially the following:

To select relevant cases for Covid-only deaths (those without other causes of death recorded), NISRA included deaths which mentioned only Covid-19, with or without pneumonia, in Part 1 of the death certificate.

Pneumonia was included, as early discussions with the Department of Health indicated that certifying doctors may have made no distinction between Covid-19 and Covid-19 pneumonia.

Kathy subsequently asked them to provide a full breakdown for the patients who died ‘with’ but not from covid by the other conditions mentioned on the death certificate by age group. The full response (19 April 2024) is here:

April_2024_Dof_2024_0169_Foi_Response_Including_Public_Interest_Test

The key table:

They note that: “The causes in this table can either be contributory causes of death or the underlying cause of death. In each case a relevant Covid-19 code appeared alongside the cause as either a contributory or underlying cause of death. An individual can appear in totals relating to more than one cause.”

So, in the entire 4-year period of covid up to March 2024 there were a total of just 275 deaths due to covid alone and that figure includes deaths which mentioned covid with pneumonia, in Part 1 of the death certificate.

In the 15-44 age group there were just 8 deaths, with the youngest person in this age group being 38, so no one younger than 38 died from covid in Northern Ireland in the entire 4 year period.

Vanishing flu

Kathy obtained the NIRSA (Northern Ireland Statistics Research Agency) data for Flu-related and Covid-19 related deaths by week, 2015 to end March 2024:

From this we can see that flu suddenly disappeared during the main covid mortality period March 2020 – Oct 2022 and then just as suddenly reappeared after that.

Specifically:

• In the normal winter 3-month flu period up until week ending 13 March 2020 there were 39 deaths from flu and 0 covid-related deaths up until then.
• The first covid related death was recorded the following week. Apart from a single flu death in each of the first 2 weeks of April 2020 there were just 2 flu deaths in the whole of the rest of 2020
• There were just 2 flu deaths in the whole of 2021
• There were just 2 flu deaths in the whole of 2022 up until week ending 7/10/22. At that point flu re-emerged from hibernation and there were 83 flu deaths between then and week ending 3/2/2023.

Excess deaths and extended waiting times

For reasons we have discussed multiple times on this substack it is diffculy to agree any definitive measure of excess deaths.

The ‘official’ excess deaths data from the Northern Ireland Government up until March 2023 is here. This is the key summary table they provide:

Note that, although we have already established that there were very few covid only deaths in the supposedly peak periods 2020-21, a pattern of excess deaths have continued since then.

Paul Frew (in the Northern Ireland Assembly, 23 April 2024) stated:

The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) has recorded, for week 15 of 2024, that we have breached over 500 excess deaths, with 502. To put that in context, we have been experiencing excess deaths for two years now, but, this time last year, for week 15 of 2023, it was recorded that there were 117 excess deaths.

Last year, there were 117, but, this year, there are 502. It took us until the week ending 24 November 2023 to reach 503 excess deaths, yet the Health Minister refuses to call for an investigation of excess deaths The Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser play down the figures, and the media continue to ignore the deaths.

I take the opportunity to again call on the Health Minister to make a statement to the House and to commence an investigation of excess deaths in this country.

In addition to continued excess death numbers, the data suggest a large increase in deaths from chronic diseases, which may be due to lockdown measures and the decision by Health Minister Robin Swann in March 2020 to shut down all medical diagnosis and treatments for all diseases, including even cancer.

This created a failing health system with extensive waiting lists prior and catastrophic waiting lists after covid. On 13 November 2020 Robin Swann said:

“No hospital will turn away a Covid-19 patient but people with other serious illness may have to wait for treatment.”

Full details of treatment waiting times can be found here. To give an indication of the scale of the increase the charts below show the percentage of cancer patients treated within 31 days of diagnosis and the total numbers of patients treated with cancer .

The target is that 98% of all patients should start treatment within 31 days of diagnosis (note that the implied sharp increase in diagnosis does not even take account of increases in waiting times for initial diagnosis – see below for the scale of this problem):

So, note:

• Just prior to the covid era (end Dec 2019) 94.4% were treated within 31 days of diagnosis but by March 2024 this dropped to 86.5%
• Despite the fact that the number of cancer patients was clearly (and inevitably) increasing since 2010, the number treated dramatically dropped from a pre-covid peak of 2,708 in March 2020 to just 2,287 in September 2020 (after which it started increasing again).

In August 2021, it was reported that 53% of patients wait more than a year to see a consultant. Mark Taylor from the Royal College of Surgeons said that behind the statistics were “patients waiting in pain, worry and in great distress”.

See more here Substack

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