The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said that it will stop publishing modelled projections of COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths as the publication of such is “no longer necessary.”
The EMRG’s projection, which covers England, Wales, and Scotland, combines a number of individual projections produced by different modelling groups.
The EMRG stated that all UKHSA data publications will be kept under constant review. It also stated that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will continue the publication of COVID-19 incidence data in its Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey.
The UKHSA is also publishing the incident numbers of COVID-19 hospitalisations, deaths, and vaccinations on the Coronavirus Dashboard.
The updating of the dashboard was temporarily halted during Christmas and will resume on Jan. 5.
The R value represents how many people an infected person will go on to infect on average.
Both the R value and the EMRG medium-term projections were first released weekly and changed to once every two weeks in April.
The EMRG chair, chief data scientist Nick Watkins, said the publication of the series is “no longer necessary.”
“During the pandemic, the R value and growth rate served as a useful and simple indicator to inform public health action and government decisions,” Watkins said in a statement.
“Now that vaccines and therapeutics have allowed us to move to a phase where we are living with COVID-19, with surveillance scaled down but still closely monitored through a number of different indicators, the publication of this specific data is no longer necessary.”
He said the UKHSA will continue to monitor COVID-19 activity “in a similar way” to how it monitors “a number of other common illnesses and diseases.”
Reduced COVID-19 Deaths
The first deaths involving COVID-19 in England and Wales occurred in March 2020.About 9 in 10 (90.18 percent) deaths involving COVID-19 were primarily caused by the disease, or 14.55 percent of all deaths in those months, the data show.
The ONS defines deaths “due to COVID-19” as deaths with an underlying cause of death of COVID-19, while deaths with COVID-19 mentioned on the death certificate are categorised as deaths “involving COVID-19.” The same principle applies to flu and pneumonia deaths.
In 2021, there were 77,727 deaths involving COVID-19 in England and Wales, or 13.28 percent of all deaths in that span. The number of death due to COVID-19 was 67,350, accounting for 88.65 percent of deaths involving COVID-19 and 11.5 percent of all deaths.
The figures from this year are incomplete, but according to ONS’s weekly data ending on Dec. 9, there have been 31,928 deaths involving the disease, or 5.91 percent of all deaths.
It’s unclear what proportion died because of COVID-19 in 2022, but separate hospital activity data from NHS England has shown a significant decline in the percentage of hospitalised COVID-19 patients who were primarily treated for the disease, which was at almost 80 percent in June 2021.
The figure remained largely stable until December 2021 before dropping to roughly 75 percent and starting a steep fall at about the same time that the more infectious but less severe Omicron coronavirus variant was found in the UK.
Excess Deaths
According to ONS data, in 2020, there were 75,031 excess deaths–the number of deaths above the five-year average of 2015 to 2019—in England and Wales. The number of excess deaths in 2021, using the same baseline, was 54,770.By Dec. 2, there had been 29,432 excess death compared to the five-year average of 2016 to 2019 and 2021, including increased cardiac deaths.
Record-high NHS backlog accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns is widely attributed to the continued presence of excess deaths, but some experts said the longer-term effects of COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, and lockdowns may all contribute to the death toll.
Sarah Caul, head of mortality analysis at the ONS, previously said that “further work needs to be done to understand any link between the long-term effects of COVID and increasing cardiac deaths.”
Statistician Jamie Jenkins and the Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART)—a group of experts who are sceptical about the policy and guidance relating to the COVID-19 pandemic—have been calling for an investigation into excess deaths.
Diagnostic pathologist and HART spokesperson Dr. Clare Craig previously told The Epoch Times that “high levels of psychological stress” from lockdowns, job insecurity, and the sense of uncertainty may have been a contributing factor, and there are “obviously concerns” that some deaths might be related to COVID-19 vaccines, which are known to be linked to adverse effects including myocarditis and pericarditis.
