The Collateral Damage of the UK’s Response to COVID-19

Written by Joel Smalley MBA on June 10, 2020. Posted in Current News

According to empirical analysis of mortality data in England and Wales during the period 13^th March 2020 to 29^th May, it is possible to conclude that as many as 20,000 unexpected deaths have been caused by the UK government’s policy response to the SAR-CoV-2 virus.

It should come as no surprise that deaths at the national level follow a linear process. What this means is that the aggregate number of deaths should rise by around about the same amount every week.

However, mortality increases during the ‘flu season which runs from week 40 to week 20 the following year in the England and Wales[i]. The Office for National Statistics uses the segmented linear regression model to analyse mortality trends[ii].

Using this same methodology, it is possible to estimate the expected weekly mortality in England and Wales outside of the ‘flu season, i.e. weeks 21 to 39 inclusive, by taking the average slope of the linear regression of each year.

The expected weekly death in England and Wales using this method is 9,133 with a standard deviation of 82. The distribution appears normal and there is no time trend so it is acceptable to assume that any value +/- 247 to be statistically significant.

By comparing the excess mortality of each week to this baseline mortality curve, it is also possible to construct an expected mortality curve that takes seasonal ‘flu into account.

The average excess between the actual weekly mortality and the expected mortality displays an evident pattern which can be fitted well with a 2-order polynomial (r² = 88{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}).

Applying the excess death polynomial to the baseline results in an expected curve that evidently makes reasonable sense when plotted alongside the empirical data.

Against this validated curve of expected mortality, emerging empirical data can be monitored and analysed in real time, identifying unexpected deviances from expectation.

According to this analysis, it is indisputable that a significant event altered the course of mortality in England and Wales some time before 27^th March. It is also difficult not to attribute at least some of this increase in mortality to COVID-19.

According to the official records of COVID-19 related deaths from Public Health England and the Department of Health and Social Care[iii], COVID-19 related deaths were first recorded in England and Wales on 13^th March 2020, amounting to 35,757 by the 29^th May.

Between these two dates, there have been 168,332 recorded deaths, whereas the change in the expected number of deaths is only 112,228, meaning there have been 56,104 excess deaths during the period.

If 35,757 are accounted for by COVID-19 (“deaths of people who have had a positive test result”), then there are just over 20,000 other unexpected deaths that are not explained.

It is feasible that these deaths could be explained by the seasonal ‘flu but it is apparent that the 2019/20 ‘flu season has been relatively mild up to the point of analysis and unlikely to suddenly spike at the exact same moment that the SARS-CoV-2 should be spreading.

Therefore, unless COVID-19 deaths are being under-reported, it is most likely that these additional, unexpected deaths are the unintended outcome of the government’s response to the coronavirus.

According to the Office for National Statistics[iv], there has been a significant increase in non-COVID-19 related deaths in care homes. Dementia is mentioned as the most prevalent pre-existing condition amongst both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 related deaths. This is unsurprising as 70{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of care home residents have dementia[v].

In consideration of this analysis, unless COVID-19 deaths have been significantly under-reported, it is difficult to deny that the measures taken by the UK government in response to the SAR-Cov-2 virus outbreak have contributed to as many as 20,000 other unexpected deaths, especially of those suffering from dementia and being resident in care homes.

Already with almost 17,000 COVID-19 deaths of English care home residents [vi] out of 34,000, and representing only 0.8{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} [vii] of the English population, care homes have taken such a disproportionate impact of the virus and the counter-measure, the appropriateness of the UK’s indiscriminate response must be seriously questioned.

[i]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/839350/Surveillance_of_influenza_and_other_respiratory_viruses_in_the_UK_2018_to_2019-FINAL.pdf

[ii]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/changingtrendsinmortalityinenglandandwales1990to2017/experimentalstatistics

[iii] https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/downloads/csv/coronavirus-deaths_latest.csv

[iv]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/deathsinvolvingcovid19inthecaresectorenglandandwales/deathsoccurringupto1may2020andregisteredupto9may2020provisional

[v] https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/reports-and-publications/later_life_uk_factsheet.pdf

About the author: Joel Smalley holds an MBA from the University of Toronto and  works as a Blockchain architect and early stage, polymath data-driven technologist, specializing in fintech, healthtech and IoT. He is currently CEO of Supermoney Ltd and CIO and CTO of Toucan Labs. 

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