In 2022, I wrote
a series of posts discussing the correlation of excess mortality with vaccination rates.
Several comparisons by country,
German-Bundesland, and more showed a positive relationship between excess mortality and vaccination (or booster) rates.That would be impossible if Covid vaccines saved lives.
The real-world data bafflingly suggest that Covid vaccines may increase excess mortality instead of decreasing it.Back then, I expressed a hope that excess mortality would moderate, a hope based on my wishing the best for all vaccinated people.
It is January 2024. Therefore, we can ask, what happened in 2023?
I found more data and re-analyzed it. There is good and bad news regarding the relationship between excess mortality and vaccination rates.
Let's take a look.
I found excess mortality for weeks 1-40 of 2023
on the OECD website. I pulled total Covid vaccination rates from
Our World in Data.
To calculate average mortality from weekly OECD data, I wrote this Perl script to load the CSV data and average it, limiting myself to countries with a full 40 weeks of data.
Please note that averaging 'weekly excess mortality' for weeks 1-40 is not a perfectly correct calculation for the excess mortality in that period (fact checkers, take note!) but it is a very close approximation.
Additionally, I excluded Israel due to the armed conflict that occurred during this period.
Here are the data:
Here's the dot-plot visualization:
How significant is this association? I used
GraphPad linear regression calculator to analyse the numbers:
It turns out that COVID-19 vaccination rates are associated with an increased mortality of 25%, and the association is highly statistically significant with the P-value of 0.0131, showing that it is unlikely a result of random chance.Bad NewsWe were told that 'Covid vaccines save lives'. The real-world data, unfortunately, show the opposite. The pattern seen in
previous analyses continues:
vaccination rates are associated with increases, not decreases, in total mortality.Similarities between relationships between vaccination rates and excess mortality in 2023 and 2022 (
2022 data discussed here) are striking:
Good NewsI have good news for people tired of negativity: excess mortality during weeks 1-40 of 2023 was somewhat lower than in 2022. Could it be explained by people no longer vaccinating against COVID-19? We cannot be sure of the answer based on the data above, but we cannot dismiss that explanation either.
Unsurprisingly, the Daily Sceptic failed to impress me for almost two years ...
First, correlation does not equal causation - even in cases wer you want it.
Second, a p-value of 0,013 is not really impressive. The "significance threshold" of 5% is arbitrary, as usual.
And third, I would rather have a discussion why the excess deaths, possibly caused by the vaxx, varies so widely amongst populations with relatively high genetic similiarity.
On a positive note, the shebang in the first code line suggests he uses Linux ...