In 2022, more than 650 thousand deaths were registered in the United Kingdom, which is 9% more than in 2019. Excluding COVID-related mortality in 2020-2021, this is one of the highest indicators of excess mortality in the last half century.
Although this indicator is much lower than at the peak of the pandemic, the question remains as to why more people are still dying than usual. If we are to believe the collected statistics, the main reasons are the impact of the pandemic on the health of citizens and the enormous burden on the British National Health Service – NHS.
Covid continues to kill people, but the mortality rate from it is currently lower than at the beginning of the pandemic: in 2022, about 38 thousand people died from coronavirus-related causes, compared to more than 95 thousand in 2020. Overall, however, more people are still dying in the country than would be expected based on pre-pandemic statistics. Compared to the two previous years, COVID-19 is only one of the factors contributing to excess mortality, not the main cause.
What else can affect excess mortality? A graph showing the number of deaths registered each week in 2022. In the second half of the year, there were consistently more deaths registered than expected, with COVID accounting for only a portion of this excess.
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Some doctors place some of the blame on the massive crisis in the NHS. By early 2022, mortality appeared to have returned to pre-pandemic levels. It was not until June that the number of deaths began to rise – at the same time as the number of people waiting for hours to be admitted to English hospitals reached levels normally seen in winter.
On January 1, 2023, the President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine suggested that the emergency care crisis could result in 300-500 deaths per week. The English part of the NHS does not consider these estimates to be reliable, but this is the number of deaths that would result if the number of people waiting for admission to urgent care in English hospital waiting rooms were multiplied by the additional risk of death associated with this prolonged waiting (from five to 12 hours). While the accuracy of these estimates can be debated, it is clear that the longer patients wait for emergency care for any reason – overcrowded hospitals, delayed or stranded ambulances, staff shortages – the greater the likelihood of a fatal outcome. And the emergency relief situation in the country is critical.
In November, for example, ambulances in the United Kingdom took an average of 48 minutes to reach patients suspected of having a heart attack or stroke. The target is 18 minutes.
Part of the excess mortality can be explained by the effect of COVID-19 on people’s general health. Several studies have found that people are more likely to have heart problems and strokes several weeks and even months after being infected with the coronavirus. And doctors do not always associate these with COVID-19 when they register deaths.
In addition to the health problems directly caused by COVID-19, there is another problem: During the pandemic, many people postponed regular check-ups and non-urgent treatment, accumulating problems for the future. Statistical data show that the number of people starting treatment for high blood pressure or taking medication to reduce the risk of heart attack fell sharply during the pandemic and has not returned to normal levels a year later.
The highest increase in mortality is among men aged 50-64, and is most often caused by heart problems.
There are popular theories on the Internet that the increase in deaths from heart disease is related to COVID-19 vaccines. However, these theories are not supported by medical data. One of the vaccines has been associated with a small increase in inflammation and scarring of the heart (pericarditis and myocarditis). However, this specific side effect of the vaccine has been observed mainly in teenagers and young men, while the excess mortality mainly affects men aged 50 years and older. In addition, these cases are very rare and usually do not result in a fatal outcome, so they do not affect the overall excess mortality statistics.
Moreover, according to the statistical data on deaths from all causes collected until June 2022, the risk of death is higher among the unvaccinated compared to the vaccinated. Although these data alone do not prove that vaccines specifically protect people from premature death (there are many additional factors that are difficult to account for), it can be argued that vaccines are not the cause of excess mortality.