Excess Death and Covid-19
More complete information is now available on excess deaths in New Brunswick during the Delta wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The picture it paints is one of obfuscated data and incompetent or wilfully negligent leadership.
The Delta wave primarily affected New Brunswick during the months of September through November 2021. It came to us immediately following Blaine Higgs' premature declaration of the end of covid and the lifting of mandates.
Based on decades of data, Statistics Canada predicts the typical number of deaths the country and provinces are likely to see during a given week. Reported deaths over this predicted number are considered excess. Week after week of large excess deaths are considered abnormal.
During the Delta wave, New Brunswick saw a dramatic increase in excess death. This may not sound surprising as we saw 60% of all reported Covid deaths to that point occur in the period of early September through late November.
A close up of the expected number of deaths during the Delta wave shows that for thirteen weeks straight, New Brunswick was consistently over what would be the expected mortality in an average year.
What is concerning is how few of the excess deaths are captured within the official Covid-19 reporting. If we look at just the excess deaths and compare that number with reported Covid deaths during the same period, we see a pronounced disparity.
Looking at the number of excess deaths not attributed to Covid, New Brunswick is left with a significant and unexplained loss. A total of 457 more individuals were lost during this time than is typical in any given non-pandemic year.
Our Minister of Health, Dorothy Shephard, has been quick to dismiss the data, acknowledging she has no explanation for the peculiar and extreme level of excess death, while being confident it has nothing to do with the pandemic.
Infectious disease expert and researcher at the University of Toronto, Dr. Tara Moriarty has pointed out that most Canadian provinces historically miss or otherwise don't report at least half of their Covid deaths. Even in the beginning of the pandemic, when testing programs could be considered functional, the US CDC estimated 75% of cases and 25% of deaths went unreported. In 2021, testing broke under the strain of poorly prepared governments and optimism as policy.
Covid added a justifiable fear of hospitals, with nosicomial infections constituting large percentages of daily cases. An already overstressed system was glutted by the outcomes of infection. Decreased capacity caused increased wait times for diagnostic and reparative procedures.
All of these things can contribute to excess death and all of these things have the pandemic as root cause.
We may never know the full burden of the pandemic on the population of NB, but as we continue to receive retrospective data, the image of negligence and denial becomes more and more clear:
As the hubris and disregard of our government increases, so too does death and disease.
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