In yesterday’s presentation, we took a look at excess deaths for a handful of OECD countries.
Some people were asking about the other countries, so in this presentation, we’ll take
a look at the rest. This is the data that we’ll be using from OECD.Stat, Excess deaths by week,
2023. If you click on Customise, you can select the countries that you’d like to include, noting
that they only collect data on OECD countries, and not all these countries have data. For example,
Ireland, Japan, Korea, and Turkey are greyed out. There simply is no data, either because these
countries don’t collect this data (I doubt it), or they’re not willing to provide it. Obviously,
I can only use the data that is provided, and this data certainly doesn’t tell us why there
are so many extra deaths. If you look at recent news articles, the reasons are always unclear,
“More people than expected are dying in Canada in 2023 for reasons that are not yet clear”. The
problem is, many governments either don’t seem to be interested in investigating the reasons
behind these increased number of deaths, or perhaps more likely, they’re scared of
what they might find. The underlying causes might reflect badly on their handling of the pandemic.
Hopefully over the next few years, the true reasons will be unearthed. As we saw yesterday,
some media outlets do try to pin the blame on other issues, for example, “Greater excess
mortality after hurricanes”, and, “England’s heatwaves see highest ever excess deaths among
elderly”, even though excess deaths seem to be consistently high during both summer and winter.
Anyway, yesterday we looked at these eight countries,
noting Australia in blue fared fairly poorly with excess deaths ranging between 10 and 20%
on average over the first few months of 2023, while Sweden did much better
averaging below zero percent. Let’s do the remaining countries in alphabetical order.
Austria, started off the year with quite high levels of excess deaths,
but have since levelled off to between 5 and 10%, which remember, is not nothing. This means that
an extra 5 or 10% of people are dying every week compared to recent historical averages.
Belgium is doing really well, as well as Sweden I would suggest. Actually,
let’s compare the average of Belgium with Sweden. We can see the average of Sweden,
the horizontal green line, is slightly better (lower) than that of Belgium,
but both countries are doing really well and are experiencing less deaths than average.
South American country Chile has had a consistently high number of excess
deaths throughout the first half of the year averaging around 20% extra deaths.
Columbia started off with an average number of excess deaths, but then had a dramatic
drop-off. I’d say something is wrong with the data, so I’ll remove it from our chart.
Czechia is also doing really well with average excess deaths below zero percent.
Here’s an article from Euronews from 2020, “Czechs so far avoid the worst
of the pandemic despite lenient lockdown. Analysts assert that because the country’s
communist past – its communist system collapsed in 1989 – Czechs know how to push the limits of
draconian laws. Generally 'avoiding' of the rules is very widespread in Czech conditions
and it is part of the heritage of communist times. It is very much related to the need
to survive and live in the conditions of the old regime, which had formally strict rules.”
Denmark headed to around 0% in the first couple of months,
but have since gone back up to between 5 and 10%, although they seem to be on the way down again.
Estonia, one of the Baltic states, had excess deaths that have been fairly up and down,
however, they average out to be about zero, so not too shabby.
Finland. Although averaging between 5 and 10%, in more recent weeks,
the average has been significantly higher at above 10%. Finland recently voted in a new
conservative government led by Petteri Orpo of the centre-right National Coalition Party. The
Finnish people booted out their previous Social Democratic Prime Minister Sanna
Marin who left office, left her husband, and is currently off partying somewhere.
France. Although its excess deaths are averaging around 3%,
they seem to be on the increase over the latter few months.
Greece has been fairly erratic over 2023, but is still averaging more deaths than normal.
Hungary is doing really well, perhaps even better than Sweden. Actually, let’s add Sweden
to the graph. As you can see, Hungary is doing better on average, averaging 4% less deaths than
normal. During the pandemic, April 2021, Hungary apparently had the most virus deaths relative to
its population. However, in January this year, there have been articles questioning the data
coming out of Hungary, so perhaps we need to be a bit careful interpreting this data.
Excess deaths in Iceland have a lot of variation,
probably due to their very low population. However,
if we put a trend line in there, it certainly looks like deaths are trending downwards.
Although it has less data, Italy is doing really well,
averaging less than zero. As we all know, Italy was hit hard at the start
of the pandemic, but at least this year, excess deaths are non-existent.
Latvia, another Baltic state, has also done really well,
averaging less deaths than normal. But it should be noted that Latvia,
as of February this year, has recorded its lowest birth rate in the past 100 years.
Our third and final Baltic state, Lithuania, has also averaged much lower than expected deaths at
almost -10%, which will probably make it our best performer this year. However, it should be noted
that as with Latvia, Lithuania’s population is falling, and has been for the last few
decades. Obviously, with decreasing population, there will be a decreasing number of deaths.
While we’re here, we may as well take a look at Sweden’s population trends.
As you can see, Sweden’s population is increasing,
so for Sweden to maintain negative excess deaths, that’s an impressive feat.
Landlocked Luxembourg has had significant excess deaths, averaging between 5 and 10%,
however, it also has a very small population, which is probably why we see so much variation.
Only eight more to go. The Netherlands have had
significant excess deaths averaging around 10% extra deaths per week.
Noway has done substantially better, although it’s still averaging 3% extra deaths per week.
Poland is doing really well averaging around 0% excess deaths, although that’s
what we should expect for a country who’s population has remained pretty much steady.
Portugal has done okay this year averaging around 2% excess deaths,
although it seems to have a lot of variation from week to week.
Slovakia has done really well averaging 4% less deaths per week. I’m not sure
why. During the pandemic, their leaders all wore masks and gloves, but despite this,
in early 2021, Slovakia had the highest virus death rate in the world. Now,
they’re doing fine and have apparently become a real tourist hotspot for budget-minded travellers.
Central European country, Slovenia, has had a fairly low excess death
count averaging around 2%, although, this seems to be increasing of late.
Being neighbouring countries,
Spain has pretty much followed Portugal in terms of excess deaths averaging around 2%.
And finally neutral Switzerland, who have the highest life expectancy in the OECD,
have done very well this year with only a slight excess death rate of around 1%, noting
that their population have been increasing quite steadily, so at 1%, it’s pretty much negligible.
And that’s all the OECD excess death data that I can muster. I’ll probably
review this data after about six months to see what happens during the rest of 2023.