An article in the Daily Mail is saying that last year’s winter deaths for people are the highest since the winter of 1999. The majority of those deaths coming from the age 75 and over age range. This was a 151% hike in what is termed, “excess deaths.” The headline in the Daily Mail hints that vaccines are the issue, but upon reading the article, not for the reasons we’d think they’d attempt to have us believe. This time they blame bad flu shots, or ineffective flu shots, on excess deaths.
That figure is the highest since 1999/00 and the first time excess deaths have exceeded 40,000 this century.
Claudia Wells, the head of mortality statistics at the ONS, said: “While the cold temperature is a factor, most of last winter was warmer than average. A major cause behind the rise was the flu virus, with estimates showing that the flu vaccine was not as effective this winter compared to previous years.”
This is interesting ground. On one hand, they admit complete and total failure of the flu shot (usual business). But on the other, the brilliance in the spectacle is that they resiliently market their flu shot. Sure, it failed, but it was “unprotected people” who potentially died. So in other words, you are safer taking flu shot failures than nothing at all.
The other interesting part in this is that they offer no proof that if people had taken successful flu shot concoctions, the numbers wouldn’t have been so high. This is a fallacy. What evidence do they cite? A trend in declining numbers versus a warmer than usual winter.
Respiratory diseases were the underlying cause of death in more than a third of all excess winter deaths in 2014/15, with pneumonia accounting for the largest proportion of these deaths.
The figures buck a trend of decreasing winter mortality over recent decades, but the record low number of deaths in 2013/14 – 17,460 – corresponded with an exceptionally mild winter where the average temperature was 6.2C. Last winter the average temperature was 4.8C.
Excess winter mortality is the difference between the number of deaths in the four winter months, December to March, compared to the average number of deaths over the rest of the year.
This is irresponsible science at play. This is an assumption made based on a desire to push more flu shots. Always read between the lines, folks. The push for flu shots is absurdly heavy this year and desperation is setting in.
