Read on Twitter
New all-cause mortality data for Scotland has been published today by @NatRecordsScot covering the week up to 14th February.
The headline figures are positive, though deaths are still well above average, but there are some *interesting* things buried in the details...
The headline figures are positive, though deaths are still well above average, but there are some *interesting* things buried in the details...
Deaths have fallen faster for women than men and male excess mortality is now considerably higher.
It's when we look by age that things get interesting.
Deaths have barely changed in the under-75s, but in the last week they've fallen a fair bit in 75-84 year olds and there's been a *big* fall in deaths in the oldest, 85+, group.
Is this the start of a vaccine effect?
Deaths have barely changed in the under-75s, but in the last week they've fallen a fair bit in 75-84 year olds and there's been a *big* fall in deaths in the oldest, 85+, group.
Is this the start of a vaccine effect?
This also links in with the fact that deaths in care homes are now some way below average for this time of year, although deaths in hospitals have also fallen.
Deaths from COVID-19 have fallen again, although there's no signs of this fall accelerating.
But if you look at deaths by cause *and* location, then there has been a pretty abrupt drop in the number of people dying of COVID in Scottish care homes.
These figures are certainly consistent with a developing 'vaccine effect', given that the oldest age groups and those in care homes are in the highest priority groups for early vaccination.
Although, at the start of the year Scotland was lagging behind the rest of the UK in terms of vaccine delivery. It has since picked up impressively, but this does make it less likely that we'd see a vaccine effect in Scotland before England, say.
However, the Scottish data is over a week ahead of the English data. If we see similar falls in the English data in the next couple of weeks, then we might start to believe there is something going on.
Until then, this is just a promising sign.
Until then, this is just a promising sign.
Finally, I was a little concerned last week about a jump up in deaths in Glasgow. Thankfully they have fallen back again this week 
R code for all these mortality plots is here:
https://github.com/VictimOfMaths/COVID-19/blob/master/All%20Cause%20Mortality/AllCauseDeaths2021.R
And the vaccination plot is here: https://github.com/VictimOfMaths/COVID-19/blob/master/Heatmaps/COVIDVaccinations.R
https://github.com/VictimOfMaths/COVID-19/blob/master/All%20Cause%20Mortality/AllCauseDeaths2021.R
And the vaccination plot is here: https://github.com/VictimOfMaths/COVID-19/blob/master/Heatmaps/COVIDVaccinations.R
