Deaths in Norway

After COVID was a complete non-event, how come the Norwegian elderly are dying at unprecedented pace now? Or as they say in Norway, "liten tue kan velte stort lass"? All is revealed.

A Norwegian farmer very kindly let me know that Norway have some excellent death data, stratified by each year of age at death. The fact he also promised me dinner if I’m ever let in the country might have been the catalyst for this analysis but I’m glad to have done it now I have seen the results.

Figure 1

As you can clearly see in Figure 1, there was no epidemic COVID in spring 2020 for those aged under 55, none. I’ve highlighted and marked it with a #1. I’ll challenge anyone to prove to me that they were going to have COVID deaths and interventions prevented them. Anyone can see, there is absolutely no evidence of this in the data (unless you think Ferguson’s woeful modelling is useful, or perhaps scenarios modelled by Whitty and Vallance?).

Figure 2

If we look at cumulative excess mortality, outcomes are even clearer. Again, look at 18-Mar-2020 (marked #1). Can you see the exponential growth in deaths thwarted by interventions? No? That’s because it was never there.

One thing you can clearly see though is that in the absence of a deadly pathogen, those young Norwegians sure as hell know how to stay safe, don’t they? Since summer 2020, excess deaths have never stopped being below expectations, every single week.

Given the evidence of this age group dying precipitously elsewhere in the western world since vaccines came along, maybe public health authorities should take a close look at the Norwegian protocols? Or what’s in the vials (or perhaps not in as the case may be?).

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the over 55s (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Sure enough, COVID was a complete non-event for them too (#1). But since summer 2021, something deadly has definitely hit. It’s as bad as the bad flu season of 2016-17. But what makes it especially bad is the timing. It's the middle of summer??!

Figure 4

Again, the cumulative excess deaths gives us a very clear picture of timing and magnitude (Figure 4). Epidemic COVID of spring 2020 (#1) is nothing compared to previous years, even after a really soft 2019.

However, given the unseasonality of the event that starts in the summer of 2021 (#2), Norwegian elders have not experienced anything close to this sort of excess death in the last six years.

As Matt Hancock might say - “unprecedented”. And as Matt Hancock would then do. Nothing.

Or am I doing Norwegian public health a disservice?

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Important Update

My new friend Trond has been neglecting his farm and instead has been poring over the Norwegian Public Health Institute’s weekly COVID-19 bulletin¹. He alerted me to hospital admissions for 2021.

Figure 5

Figure 5 shows the admissions to hospital for COVID and other respiratory conditions. The green line is lower respiratory tract infections, the blue line is upper respiratory tract infections and the purple line is respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

RSV usually affects babies but can also be a big issue for elderly patients. As you can see, all three of these non-COVID respiratory conditions increase significantly from week 30 onwards (01-Aug-21).

Figure 6

From Figure 6, we can also see that 65 to 79 year old admissions accelerate in a truly unprecedented fashion from the same week, leading to the obvious conclusion that they are being admitted for non-COVID respiratory conditions.

Figure 7

As we can also see from Figure 7, it is just a few days later that this age group starts to die at an exponential rate.

It doesn’t take an epidemiologist, pathologist or even a doctor to work out the rest?

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Data source: https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/table/07995/tableViewLayout1/

1. https://www.fhi.no/contentassets/8a971e7b0a3c4a06bdbf381ab52e6157/vedlegg/2022/ukerapport-uke-3-17.01---23.01.22.pdf