For the first time in more than six months, excess mortality fell for two weeks in a row in weeks 49 and 50. In the spring, the mortality rates started to rise and in the summer they continued to grow into December. Plausible explanations have not been given for it and in terms of causes of death, which can indicate the direction in which to think, CBS, RIVM, OMT and the outgoing minister are anxiously keeping their cards close to their chest. The intended minister is currently OMT member OMT representative, so that unity is guaranteed for the future.
Vaccination deaths after all
We now count almost 9,000 excess mortality deaths without counting the covid deaths. This is shown in the graph with the cumulative view. A number that will reach ten thousand in any case in the two weeks that 2021 still has to go. That is much more than died of Covid in the same period. What is worse is that according to some calculation methods, there may be even more [to be elaborated in later article] than actually died of Covid in 2020. At that time there were no vaccinations, only SARS-CoV-2.
Because the government demands the exclusive right to public figures, we have to get creative in finding interpretation. Anyone who just walks on and acts as if there is nothing to see, is neglecting his or her civic duty. We have to look out for each other, as can be read in many Christmas messages.
Many possible and plausible-sounding causes have been reviewed. They have been weighed by the Eucalyptic Society (a kind of Red Team but a bit sharper) and found wanting for more than a limited contribution to mortality. All things considered, another cause must be dominant and the only remaining candidate so far is the vaccination campaign.
Alternative causes undermined by timing
A test that most explanations cannot pass is the timing test: "Why did it only start in April/May?" Keeping in mind that an undermortality effect may depress the figures. After all, undermortality can be expected after the previous waves, which means that steadily increasing excess mortality was only reflected in the figures later.
De Volkskrant chatted that they were corona deaths after all. The RIVM is said to be doing its registration work poorly by only observing a quarter of the corona deaths. While they have been basing their reporting on it for almost two years. But then the timing question arises: why suddenly from April, and then increasingly worse?
General socio-economic disruption? That I mentioned earlier and Maurice de Hond even suggested "General disruption" as the main cause. As the EC rightly points out, this is difficult to quantify. It is also unclear among which age groups this should take place and what causes of death would be involved. But once again, the timing is particularly disappointing: after all, the disruption started in March last year. Does that take a year and then it goes up like a rocket? How can that be explained? You would expect much more gradual trends.
This also applies to "deferred care". Why suddenly these effects? This is quite apart from the fact that the treatment data of hospitals do not give reason to achieve mortality in this order of magnitude a year later; Rarely delayed care involved life-threatening situations. Here too, a sudden upturn is unlikely; Those effects should last longer. I refer again to the EC document.
Yet another indication of vaccination deaths
Almost all alternative explanations concern long-term problems, which could persist for many years or perhaps even decades. The picture of the past year does not fit in with that. From 0 to 8,000 deaths in six months, that's not a long-term trend (hopefully).
This criterion is now being tightened sharply because it looks like the figures are already falling sharply again. If this downward trend continues, all systemic explanations (social, societal, psychological, administrative, lifestyle, etc.) can be properly put aside. It is hard to imagine that these scenarios cause a mortality peak while the disruption and social misery is still exacerbated by the government and the population is further pitted against each other. With the best intentions of course, don't get me wrong.
This then calls even more emphatically for the explanation of a short-term mortality peak instead of a longer-term increase in excess mortality – which is still not excluded, but not in these numbers or with this exorbitant fluctuation.
This does not alter the fact that the other explanations may indeed show a slight but structural increase in mortality in the coming years or decades.
Now that explanations are even less tenable than they already were due to the decreasing peak, 1 plausible explanation still remains. Until decent data is made available that shows otherwise, I have no problem talking about (suspected) vaccine deaths. Hopefully, this will force some people to make the mortality figures transparent, age-stratified, with causes of death and vaccination dates.
The booster effect
In the coming months, if it is up to De Jonge, CBS will have its hands free to continue working on plausibizing the causes of death. In the meantime, the booster campaign is already in full swing. There is no doubt that Covid mortality will drop sharply thanks to the Omicron variant, just as we owe the current falling hospital admissions to it. It will be a challenge to continue to make meaningful comparisons under these changing circumstances. Will we see another bump in the "unexplained excess mortality" in a few weeks based on CBS and RIVM figures? We will see it.
