Jean Fisch

No worries! It's a good study (I mean the authors are as serious as it gets in the trade!)

(also, I have never went through the data of HMD, especially by year, to see what is straight from stats offices and what is estimates by them ...)

Thanks Norma, I had seen it - Serious paper but one on which I can't really comment because I never looked through the lens of life expectancy

FWIW, I had this interaction on it separately with Karl and Jonas (who is another co-author)

bsky.app/profile/jean...

Quick second clarification: The excess in this mortality analysis is measured against the 2013-2019 trend by 5yr age buckets of mortality rates

So, it's measured against expected deaths from pre-pandemic trends

Let me clarify here the bit about "covid on top"

What I mean is: covid adds an intra-year fluctuation (on top of flu & heat)

It does not mean that covid deaths are structurally additional: it's possible that they are just displacement deaths eg from flu 3 months later

bsky.app/profile/jean...

In fact, if looking at annual data age-standardized, there is deficit more than excess at population level since 2024

Mortality in Italy in 2025 (Istat released its deaths up to end 2025 by age last week)
/ Average flu and heat season led to no excess
/ There is a spike of excess (blue arrow) at the moment of the covid wave)

All in all, mortality is as expected with covid "on top"

Link to the RKI paper on the RKI website: www.rki.de/EN/News/Publ...

How the public health authority of a leading western economy can publish such erratic things is beyond me: It just discredits
- itself (although it can hide behind a "peer reviewed" 🙄)
- LC, which is a condition which has affected a % of the population just not 10-15% (and not now)

Sigh ...

@rki.de published a paper last week stating "population level controlled studies show that 10-15% of covid infected develop Long Covid"

I just checked its sources and the statement is
a) incorrect: it's for cases detected not infections so approx 3x too high
b) for pre-Omi infection (not "current")

(ah, I see now that I did write "widening of the laws": yes, that's not correct, thanks for pointing it out!)

I couldn't find where I was talking about the widening of the laws / sorry if I did inadvertently though

I was referring to the expansion of its application (eg in 2014) and to, visibly, an increasing recourse

(no view whether good or bad, just that this has an effect on mortality)

Yes, the overall excess (calculated on ASMR vs trend) is about 4% ish for NL and the shift / expansion from euthanasia could explain 1-2% (I played with numbers nothing more)

I would be interested in any analysis you would do (no doubt more properly and with the right tools)

BUT, I think part of the issue could be the result of the widening of its euthanasia laws ...

2/2

bsky.app/profile/jean...

FYI, I had a look at the Dutch data not long ago and it is infuriating

1/2

bsky.app/profile/jean...

Thanks, very interesting, I will have a look!

One thing I couldn't find immediately is how many pre-pandemic years did you take to fit your expected deaths? I think 5 but the chart looks like 10?

Thanks for filling in!

Thanks, I hadn't seen it!

Ah thanks! Yes, it's a well-known pattern (which, if memory serves me right, you had the kindness to explain to me a few years back, when I was discovering everything mortal)

Destatis updated its monthly cause of deaths report up to May 2025 for Germany

It remains fascinating to see how many deaths with circulatory as underlying cause are actually triggered by respiratory / covid

(oh, and Germany still hasn't received the memo about turbo cancer... )

Yes, of course, as said, I easily see how one can get to such a statement appearing in a MoU without the author meaning to say anything else than 'it's a killing virus'

And this is not even a quote

But it shows how sensitive comms are ...

Those convinced of "a big plot" will see here a confirmation of their fear and nobody will be able to correct it

It just shows that scientists working in public health are in the public eye and need appropriate training to make sure they communication uncertainty and talk in the words of the public

So, this shows how easily, back in March 2020, a statement such as a "not particularly lethal and transmissible" statement can slip out of the mouth of a not very cautious / aware health official ...

It's so easy and yet the implications are so massive

But of course, this still meant covid will create havoc

/ a virus with an IFR of 1% means 700k deaths in the UK

/ the expectation at the time of an R0 of 3 hitting a naive pop was leading to an initial wave of approx 40-50% (not saying it's a right assumption, just what that it was the assumption)

b) virologists and public health experts live in their world and their language requires context

I remember Drosten explaining covid early on as "just another virus"

He wanted to reassure but what he meant was that it was not worse than a completely new flu virus (ie IFR=1% / R0=3 "ish")

a) Around that date (18/3/2020), you could still believe, like for instance Tegnell in Sweden did, that there was high cross immunity from exposure to other viruses and that covid's IFR was not more than 0.1%

Yes, Imperial in the UK found 1% but you could not rule out cross immunity at the time

Let's not beat around the bush: This will be water to the mills of anyone convinced that covid was just an excuse for / constructed by dark forces to coerce populations into submission (or so)

The issue is around that statement is double ...

There is a claim out there that the New Zealand Director of Public Health said that covid was not particular lethal nor transmissible

I was dubious but he did seem to have done so if this memo of March 18, 2020 obtained via FOI reflects his view correctly

www.health.govt.nz/system/files...

So far clarity: What the charts above show is that, with the data available on Australia, it is not possible to conclude on vaccines being a factor or not

The New Zealand data does allow to conclude and it showed no unexplained mortality during vaccination

On this study seeing big non-covid excess in parts of Australia in 2021: I just realize that ABS has mortality by age by State

The data shows NO excess in 2021 in the young (who are not affected by flu) in States with little lockdown

So the conclusion of that study doesn't fly, as I suspected

Yes, I am sure it exists since all what is needed is a different cut of the mortality data (age, jurisdiction, cause)

It would be helpful to have more than "just" the New Zealand data point