Scotland mortality 2022 week 35
Summary of Scotland’s mortality and excess mortality. All data mortality and population data via National Records of Scotland
Overall
The Week 35 data were released;
Prior week 34 revised up to +9% (86 more deaths than normal).
Week 35 is initially +9% (84 more deaths than normal).
Scotland now 2,519 excess deaths, essentially identical to 2021. Having started the year negative (as should be the case post pandemic, with excess deaths ‘pulled forward’, we then had 2,890 excess deaths through this, the worst summer Scotland has experienced. We’ve barely had a week in the normal range since March.
Summary of Summer
This is a focus on summer (June to August, weeks 23 through 35). Week 35 of 2022 will be revised up again next week, but this is more or less the final picture.
Total deaths obviously well up on 2020, and even 2021 (then Scotland’s worst summer).
Obviously excess deaths up as well
And strangely COVID deaths are ALSO above 2021 and 2020.
The above shows Weeks 23-35 for every year going back. We can see the trend moving down and down every year as longevity improves. 2021 was then a massive break from that improving trend. 2022 spikes up again, to a new all-time high.
(Note that we can make the above chart using ASMR (Age-Standardised Mortality Rate) and it will show summer 2022 as being quite normal. That is because the people dying in excess are very elderly (see below) and those excess deaths are suppressed with ASMR.
However, use of ASMR also shows that nothing unusual mortality-wise has happened in Scotland since April/May 2020 (when the government inflected the Lockdown and Care Homes scandal (which accounted for a huge proportion of excess deaths.)
Excess mortality by Location, by cause, by age
Excess mortality by cause shows…. ‘Others’ again this week.
Excess deaths by location, no surprises is people dying at home. As the Cumulative chart shows virtually ALL of the excess deaths in Scotland were and remain, people dying at home.
Excess deaths by age, we continue to see significant excess deaths overall, about 15% higher than normal. The older the age group, the higher the excess.
Summary - total excess in 2022
The above shows the breakdown of Scotland’s total excess for the year.
By age: The older the age group, the higher the excess (both number of people and percentage)
By Cause of death: Is ‘Others’ hugely in excess, and - defying all of the ‘protection’ - COVID is high.
By location of death: Is death at home, by far the majority.
Overall it’s not a good picture. The recent surge of excess seems to be settling down at the moment, but let’s see what the coming weeks bring, and especially looking ahead to the winter.
We’ll keep updating week by week.
Best wishes!
Scottish Unity, Edinburgh Group
These are very interesting and thank you for the summaries. It's clear that some public health measures are needed, but I noticed your group's main site was against lockdowns (of course I agree they were very poorly done in terms of ordinary businesses). From the trends, have you noticed a measure which addresses spread without having such deleterious effects on other aspects of life?
Shared on twitter. The number / proportion of 'other' does seem high. I take it most are still not being autopsied? But I am not aware of the context; and it would be good to know what the typical percentage of 'other' was in the pre-covid years? Thanks for all you do, its important that the all these premature deaths are not ignored or swept under the carpet. I added some annotations to your cumulative pandemic deaths & births graph, and will tag you when I next post it on twitter.