THREAD – statistical misrepresentation

I have seen the table below being widely shared to falsely imply that deaths are no higher than normal this year

The table is both factually incorrect and misleading

Those who created it deliberately sow confusion and doubt

1/6

Firstly, a common approach used to manipulate statistics is the selective use of dates or time periods

In the table you can see that previous complete years are being compared to a partial year – only going up to week 45 of this year, which ended on 6 Nov

2/6

Secondly, having made it look like official numbers are being used, the wrong number is actually given

There had been 517k deaths registered by 6 Nov this year, not the 485k that are stated in the table

3/6

Thirdly, an out-of-date statistic continues to be used

We have now published data for deaths registered up to the end of week 49 (4 Dec this year). There have been 567k deaths so far

Figures from the corresponding period in previous years were 496k, 510k, 500k, 494k & 501k

4/6

Given current weekly numbers of deaths, we can sadly assume that there are likely to be over 600k deaths registered in E&W this year

There have only been 600k+ deaths registered in a single year once before – in 1918, the year of the “Spanish” flu pandemic

5/6

No’s are affected by population size & structure. As well as by health and public health. We came close to 600k deaths in the 1970s/80s. 10 yrs ago we were below 500k

This year we’re likely to see c.70k “excess” deaths above the 5-yr avg – the best measure to use

6/6 ENDS