Weekly Deaths Update (part 2)

Registered weekly deaths in England & Wales 2010 - 2022

Yesterday we started out by eyeballing the all cause mortality rate (deaths per 100k population) for England & Wales for the period 2010/w1 to 2022/w13 as one long sausage. This morning we are going to look at the same data after it has been passed through the bacon slicer:

Whilst this is the most colourful graph I produce, enabling me to use all my crayons, it tells us a few darn interesting things. First up, it tells us how neat and tidy registered death generally is across the year despite the potential for influenza outbreaks to come early or late and for office staff to get behind with processing, either messing up synchronisation based on a rigid weekly numbering system.

Second up, it tells us that the pandemic only really got into its stride during weeks 14 to 21 of 2020; a period during which old and frail folk were being shunted out of hospital beds into nursing and care homes to be greeted with end of life care pathways incorporating nil by mouth, DNR and Midazolam cocktails.…