A few breakpoints are pretty special, and one is the date of the vaccine rollout, while yet another special date is the date when Delta variant COVID became predominant — because Delta variant is not significantly more lethal than seasonal flu.
A third date that is really very special is the date that Omicron variant became predominant — because Omicron variant is not even half as fatal as seasonal flu.
If your nation gets a lot of excess death when the disease isn’t any worse than flu or, even more spectacular, if your nation gets a lot of excess death when the disease is not even one-half as fatal as the median flu season — then something is amiss.
Here is a select group of nations who had more excess death after vaccines than before:
Also of note is the purple line at right, indicating when Omicron became dominant worldwide. More than a couple of nations experienced over 50% excess mortality when the disease (Omicron) was not even half as bad as seasonal flu. That “super-peak” above 150% excess during Omicron is in Hong Kong.
Why did they die so much?
You might notice that the general trend, as COVID gets weaker and weaker over time, is the excess mortality tends to rise. But that is counter-intuitive: because, as diseases get weaker, excess deaths should fall, not rise.
Let’s look at some of the nations who had a lot of excess death among the non-elderly (age < 65):
As you can see, back on 8 Mar 2020, there were no issues with death among non-elderly people. The numbers are the weekly percentage of excess death, and negative numbers mean deaths are running lower than expected, compared to a 2015-2019 baseline.
In the last week before vaccines rolled out, there were a few places where excess death among the non-elderly exceeded 25% — such as in the USA and in New Zealand. Let’s now look forward in time to the point where Delta variant had become dominant, worldwide:
As referenced above, Delta variant had an infection fatality rate which is not statistically different from flu. I have covered infection fatality rates, and how you properly estimate them, extensively in prior Substacks — and most recently here. Let’s pan forward in time when Delta variant was still the dominant variant, worldwide:
Excess deaths among non-elderly were strikingly high by mid-November, and the peak death in the USA had been in the week of 5 Sep 2021 — when 70% excess death was seen among the young.
That September peak makes the 31% excess shown above appear to be a good day, but you must be in the hurt-bag, if you think that 30% excess death is a good day — during a time when the disease wasn’t worse than flu.
Let’s now pan forward in time to the point when COVID was no longer even half as fatal as the common, seasonal flu: Omicron dominance.
The non-elderly excess death under Omicron is scientifically unexplainable, given it’s ultra-low infection fatality rate. This means that causes of excess death besides COVID must be responsible for the vast majority of the excess deaths seen ever since Jan 2022 — and everywhere on Earth (Omicron was dominant, worldwide, by Jan 2022).
Just one more screenshot to hammer the point home:
Under the weakest-ever variant of COVID, Chile saw 87% excess death in the young, Israel saw 28% excess death, and the USA still saw over 20% excess death in the non-elderly.
Reference
[P-scores by age group using five-year average baseline] — OWID. https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid