Typically flu seasonal deaths are higher one year, lower the next, then higher, etc. Likely due to immune boosting from the prior year, and death of the most susceptible. Measles had a 3-4 year cycle like this, with low prevalence while the pool of susceptible young kids increased.
So two years of high excess deaths is highly unusual, if due just to the SARS-Cov-2 virus.
I wonder if the excess deaths in both years are due to the virus spike protein: from infection in 2020, from the vaccines in 2021. Any ideas about how to confirm or refute this?
Well, if we had covid & all cause deaths by vax status, that would work. I don't think that exists. Another possibility (less reliable) would be to see if there is association between non-Covid deaths and % of population vaccinated.... there would be so many other factors in play (e.g. different areas begin with much different death rates) that I suspect it would be hard to tease out, but I might take a quick look to see if we have data to explore.
The big problem with hospitalizations is that it is a fluid metric, of course. I've speculated that the UK increase in hospitalizations-per-"case" in the late spring (attributed to Delta) could be a reflection of loosened standards for admission after the winter wave, for example. Could be the same in US hospitals, after all the 70+ were discharged. Additionally, there were spring waves in the east coast, WA + OR, and Great Lakes states - combination of Canada spillover and Chauvin trial?!?! (no, probably just Canada).
Comment from your prior post:
Typically flu seasonal deaths are higher one year, lower the next, then higher, etc. Likely due to immune boosting from the prior year, and death of the most susceptible. Measles had a 3-4 year cycle like this, with low prevalence while the pool of susceptible young kids increased.
So two years of high excess deaths is highly unusual, if due just to the SARS-Cov-2 virus.
I wonder if the excess deaths in both years are due to the virus spike protein: from infection in 2020, from the vaccines in 2021. Any ideas about how to confirm or refute this?
Well, if we had covid & all cause deaths by vax status, that would work. I don't think that exists. Another possibility (less reliable) would be to see if there is association between non-Covid deaths and % of population vaccinated.... there would be so many other factors in play (e.g. different areas begin with much different death rates) that I suspect it would be hard to tease out, but I might take a quick look to see if we have data to explore.
Also see el gato's post on er visits, https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/did-covid-vaccines-cause-a-spike More data it would be nice to have: er visitor vax status :-)
The big problem with hospitalizations is that it is a fluid metric, of course. I've speculated that the UK increase in hospitalizations-per-"case" in the late spring (attributed to Delta) could be a reflection of loosened standards for admission after the winter wave, for example. Could be the same in US hospitals, after all the 70+ were discharged. Additionally, there were spring waves in the east coast, WA + OR, and Great Lakes states - combination of Canada spillover and Chauvin trial?!?! (no, probably just Canada).