Published: December 2023 (upd.)
A fresh look at the real numbers and true causes.
A) Covid still (secretly) runs the show
Global excess mortality continues to be driven by covid infections in elderly people. There were three to five omicron waves in 2022 and another two or three omicron waves in 2023, in addition to one or two flu waves in each year (see charts below).
These waves are no longer visible in PCR testing data but they remain visible in wastewater monitoring data, e.g. in the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Excess mortality continues to run in parallel to these “invisible” covid waves (see charts below).
In many countries, the current omicron winter wave is the strongest or second strongest covid wave on record. Covid mortality is lower than in 2020 and 2021 because omicron is milder than previous variants and because people by now have developed some natural immunity or they have died.
Health authorities and vaccine proponents avoid this topic because it shows their containment efforts have failed and “zero covid” was an illusion. Covid skeptics and vaccine skeptics also avoid the topic because they want to blame excess mortality on covid vaccines.
The continuing covid waves are not a catastrophe but a reality. Ignoring or denying this reality leads to incorrect conclusions such as climate change or vaccines driving excess mortality.
Discussing excess mortality data without considering infection figures – based on antibody data in 2020/2021 and wastewater monitoring data since 2022 – is simply not a sensible approach.
Figure (USA): Top chart: wastewater data (blue) and PCR data (green). Bottom chart: excess deaths (red) and reported covid deaths (black) (Sources: Biobot and Kobak)
Figure (Netherlands): Mortality (top) and covid wastewater data (RIVM)
Figure (Austria): Covid waves in Austria. Blue: wastewater; orange: PCR (Austria)
B) Heart deaths and cancer deaths
In addition to direct respiratory deaths, respiratory infections have always been a leading cause of heart deaths in elderly people. This is why heart deaths also run in parallel to covid infections and covid deaths (see charts below).
Covid vaccines killed about 1 in 100,000 people and caused heart inflammation in about 1 in 1,000 young males, but there is not yet any evidence they increased overall heart deaths. Similarly, there is not yet any evidence they increased overall cancer rates.
The one category of non-covid deaths that did increase in the United States and several other Western countries is alcohol and drug overdose deaths (especially opioid deaths), likely as a direct result of lockdowns, isolation, and desperation.
Figure: Heart deaths (black) and influenza deaths (blue) in the US, 1999-2019 (Pienaar)
Figure: Covid deaths (red) and heart deaths by age group in the US, 2020-2022 (Pienaar)
C) Sweden
Both the WHO and many independent analysts concluded that no-lockdown Sweden had the lowest pandemic excess mortality in the world or even no pandemic excess mortality at all.
But as previously detailed, this is not the case: calculated correctly, it becomes apparent that covid not only caused a similar level of age-adjusted excess mortality in Sweden as in other Western European countries, but even broke the previous Swedish downward mortality trend that “swallowed” true excess mortality and misled many modelers (see chart below).
Sweden really has confused almost the entire world: first the covid alarmists (who believed no-lockdown Sweden would collapse), then the covid skeptics (who believed “no lockdowns, no excess mortality”), then the vaccine promoters (who believed Sweden proved covid vaccines didn’t cause any deaths at all), and finally the vaccine skeptics (who couldn’t understand why highly vaccinated Sweden seemed to have no excess mortality).
The calm and patient-focused Swedish strategy devised by state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell and his mentor Johan Giesecke was a success, but there was no Swedish “mortality miracle”.
Figure: Crude mortality rate in Sweden, 52-week moving average (Mortality Watch)
D) England & Wales
The situation in England is the exact opposite: English mortality has been increasing since 2010. Thus, a typical 5-year average baseline overestimates true excess mortality. This fact was exploited first by covid alarmists and then by lockdown and vaccine skeptics to exaggerate true English excess mortality (see next chart).
Figures: Average vs. linear mortality baseline in England (ONS)
Even now, estimating true English excess mortality remains a difficult task:
England has seen substantial excess mortality in working-age people (15-64), but contrary to what vaccine skeptics believe, this increase is linked to covid, not vaccination (see next chart). Possible causes are high obesity rates and a high proportion of dark-skinned South Asian immigrants. Drug and alcohol deaths also increased substantially in this age group.
Figure: Mortality 15-64, England vs. Switzerland, 52-week moving average (MW)
E) Germany
German covid and vaccine skeptics like to point out that Germany had no excess mortality in the “pandemic year” of 2020, some excess mortality in the “vaccination year” of 2021, and even more excess mortality in the “omicron year” of 2022. They believe this shows covid was a complete hoax and people were killed by covid vaccines.
But it shows the opposite: 2020 was not the “pandemic year” in Germany, as the infection rate was still below 5% by December 2020. In 2021 vaccination reduced the mortality impact of three additional covid waves (1x alpha and 2x delta), while in 2022 multiple strong waves of the vaccine-escaping omicron variant caused substantial excess mortality (see chart below).
German covid skeptics and vaccine skeptics don’t want to discuss this because it raises the question if German government measures in 2020 were effective (it was mostly seasonal luck in the spring of 2020, as in Eastern Europe). German health authorities don’t want to discuss it, either, because it shows their containment strategy has failed.
Figure: Crude mortality rate in Germany, 52-week moving average (Mortality Watch)
Germany has also seen some excess mortality in working-age people, but again the main cause is clearly covid, not vaccination (see next chart): in Germany, the increase began during the second covid wave (autumn 2020) while in Switzerland it began during the first covid wave (spring 2020).
In addition, Germany has seen an unprecedented increase in alcohol and opioid deaths (+1,200 people, average age 40), likely a result of prolonged lockdowns, isolation and bankruptcies (e.g. 10% of German hotels and 20% of German bars went bankrupt).
Figure: Mortality 15-64, Germany vs. Switzerland, 52-week moving average (MW)
F) Former “zero covid” countries
A few countries or rather world regions had very low pre-omicron covid infection rates. This select group included Australia and New Zealand, East Asia, and the Nordic countries excluding Sweden.
In the case of Australia and New Zealand, the reason obviously was early and strict border controls in addition to seasonal luck (summertime during initial outbreak), but the Australian city of Melbourne showed that just one or two “incidents” in a “quarantine hotel” were sufficient to cause major covid outbreaks comparable to some European cities. Melbourne ultimately suffered the world’s longest lockdown and some of the world’s worst police violence.
In East Asia, even countries with very few “measures” – such as Japan – saw very low pre-omicron infection rates. This may indicate a genetic, immunological or metabolic difference that resulted in inherently lower pre-omicron transmission rates in East Asian people (similar to Western children). If so, the “successful” Wuhan lockdown, not replicated anywhere else, may always have been a mirage.
In the Nordic countries, a combination of remote geography, early border controls, lucky winter holiday timing, record low population weighted densities, and record high percentages of one-person households has been proposed to explain low infection rates in 2020 and 2021. Ironically, the Nordic countries had rather liberal covid policies compared to most other Western countries.
The following chart shows the end result. The former zero-covid countries could not avoid the pandemic since covid vaccines couldn’t prevent infection and transmission, but they still achieved a mortality advantage by skipping the more severe pre-omicron variants and by vaccinating their senior citizens prior to first exposure to the virus. However, in early 2020 neither the quick availability of effective vaccines nor the emergence of a milder variant could be predicted.
Cumulative excess mortality in most zero-covid countries is about 4-5 times lower than in the United States (worst case among Western countries) and about 2-3 times lower than in a typical Western European country like the Netherlands (Sweden and England are both close to the Netherlands). Canada (purple) lost control in 2021 during the two delta waves.
Japan and Taiwan (age-adjusted data not available) are both close to South Korea. New Zealand’s excess mortality appears to be underestimated by the model but it is likely the lowest in the world. For comparison, excess mortality in Bulgaria is twice as high as in the United States.
Former zero-covid countries that did not achieve high vaccination rates among their elderly people, such as Hong Kong and China, performed as badly or worse than many Western countries. Running a zero-covid policy without vaccinating elderly people was really pointless.
In sum, most former zero-covid countries have achieved a mortality advantage, but this outcome was not predictable in early 2020 and wasn’t achievable for most other countries.
Figure: Former zero-covid countries vs. USA and NL, cumulative excess mortality (MW)
G) Birth rates
Many countries have seen markedly lower birth rates since 2022. While some health authorities have proposed climate change or stress as explanations, many covid skeptics and vaccine skeptics believe mRNA vaccines are to blame.
But as previously detailed, the main cause almost certainly is the collapse in marriage rates in 2020 and 2021 due to lockdowns and other restrictions (up to -50% in some countries).
Interestingly, US marriage rates started to decline already in 2017, which is why the additional decline in 2020 was not as remarkable as in Europe (see charts below).
Once again this is an issue almost nobody wants to discuss: health authorities don’t want to admit that it was their own policies that suppressed well over 100,000 births globally, while many covid skeptics and vaccine skeptics are focusing exclusively on mRNA vaccines.
The vaccine hypothesis is contradicted by several mRNA countries without an unusual decline in births, likely due to larger family sizes (i.e. more births within existing marriages) or a higher percentage of extramarital births (e.g. 10% in Greece vs. 60% in France).
Nevertheless, vaccinating healthy pregnant women – and young people in general – was not a smart strategy. A transient impact of covid vaccines on the menstrual cycle has already been confirmed and an impact on fertility and early pregnancy has not yet been completely ruled out.
Figure: US marriage rate 1990 to 2021 (Statista)
Figure: Marriage rate in the European Union, 1964-2021 (Eurostat)
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Global Excess Mortality Update
An analysis by Swiss Policy Research.