Persistent Excess Deaths in Young and Middle-Aged in the UK

A new study has demonstrated that Long COVID can resolve over time. Shutterstock

A comment published in the Lancet has stated that there is an excess death rate of 8.6 percent across all age groups in the UK—with the most significant increase in younger and middle-aged adults.

Based on figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the excess deaths equated to more than 1,000 a week for the first six months of this year (an extra 28,024) up from the previous year of 2022 which showed an excess death rate of 7.2 percent—a total of 44,255 deaths more than expected.

“(Causes) could include the direct effects of COVID-19, infection, acute pressures on NHS services resulting in poorer outcomes from episodes of acute illness,” the one-page comment, co-authored with researchers from Imperial College London, the Department of Health, the University of Exeter and others said.

The paper does not go on to give a detailed breakdown of the excess deaths by cause but says the statistics are different from the “acute stage of the pandemic” when most deaths were recorded in the elderly.

“The pattern now is one of persisting excess deaths which are most prominent in relative terms in middle-aged and younger adults,” it said, adding that deaths involving cardio-vascular disease at home accounted for the largest number of excess deaths.

It stated that there are currently no excess deaths in care homes and there were 12 percent fewer deaths than expected in hospices in the year to June 2023. In contrast, there were 22 percent more deaths at home and 10 percent more deaths in hospital than expected.

Breaking down the data over one year (from June 2022–June 2023), the authors said that heart failure accounted for 20 percent of the excess deaths, with ischaemic heart disease accounting for 15 percent, acute respiratory infections for 14 percent, liver disease for 19 percent, all cardiovascular diseases for 12 percent, and diabetes for 13 percent.

The authors call for “timely and granular analyses” in order to “describe such trends and so to inform prevention and disease management efforts.”

The declarations of interest made by the authors include “personal fees” paid to Dr. Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard of Imperial College from Novo Nordisk and Pfizer, two pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer produced one of the vaccines used in the COVID-19 pandemic.  The other authors declared no competing interests.

Dr. Yvonne Doyle, a former medical director of the now disbanded Public Health England, claimed that lifestyle choices were likely to be the dominant factor for the spike in deaths.

Writing in the Times, Dr. Doyle, who gave evidence to the COVID Inquiry in October, said, “More people are dying across the world since 2020. The prime driver of this has not been COVID-19, despite its heavy death toll.

“These deaths represent an underlying pandemic of ill health. They are driven by highly preventable conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and cirrhosis caused by lifestyle choices,” she said.

Scientists and experts have been calling for detailed data from the ONS to understand what is causing the ongoing excess death toll.

Professor Norman Fenton, a mathematician from Queen Mary London published an article on his blog detailing data that needs to be released for vaccine recipients in the UK to determine whether the COVID-19 vaccine saved as many lives as claimed by government-affiliated scientists.