Excess Mortality Due to COVID

Quinary age & sex standardised monthly all cause and non-COVID mortality for England & Wales 2020 - 2021 (rev 1.2)

Yesterday I revealed the monthly series for non-COVID mortality for England & Wales for the period 1970 – 2021 and compared this with all cause mortality. This morning it made sense to subtract one set of figures from the other and arrive at an estimated of excess mortality due to COVID. In the plot below you’ll see two nicely defined waves, the second being seasonal and the first being distinctly aseasonal. The first looks like an impulse and consequent response, and we may ask how a virus can yield instant results across the width and breadth of two nations like this. The second wave follows what we may expect from something nasty spreading.

The Big Issue

But the big issue here is how we go about defining death due to COVID as opposed to death with a positive test, and I’ve grumbled on about his a fair deal since Mar 2020. Let us start with some definitions that determine what the Office for National Statistics will count.

Definitions

Herewith a screen shot of the definitions tab on the…