Early January 2022 data is now available on excess deaths in New Brunswick, continuing to imply obfuscated information and incompetent or wilfully negligent leadership during the Delta and early Omicron wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Here's what we can now see.
Omicron was first detected in New Brunswick in early December and rapidly became the dominant variant in the province.
Officially reported statistics during this time were extremely concerning, leading to the most stringent protection measures of the pandemic being implemented on Jan 14.
The recent data from Stats Canada provides insight into the true impacts of the early Omicron wave and shines a bright light on the performance of government during this time. The data begs a crucial question: is the New Brunswick government incompetent or deceptive?
We’ve written previously on the implications of New Brunswick's abnormally high level of excess death during the Delta and early Omicron waves, but we will summarize the key points and updated data here.
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 and continuing into the Omicron wave, New Brunswick saw a dramatic increase in excess death. This may not sound surprising as we saw 71% of all reported Covid deaths to that point occur in the period of early September through late December.
The monstrously increased and sustained excess death in December 2021 and the first weeks of January 2022 is something never experienced in recent history. At the time, SARS-CoV-2 deaths were increasing to levels not seen previously in the pandemic, however these account for only a fraction of the excess deaths.
A close up of the expected number of deaths during the Delta and early Omicron waves shows that for 20 weeks straight, New Brunswick was consistently and increasingly 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 858 more individuals were lost during this time than is typical in any given non-pandemic year. Only 137 (16%) of these deaths were attributed to SARS-CoV-2.
Previously, our Minister of Health 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.
Dr. Tara Moriarty has pointed out that most Canadian provinces missed or don't report at least half of Covid deaths historically.
In the absence of other credible causes, New Brunswick is not reporting as much as 79% of its Covid deaths on average.
Even in the beginning of the pandemic, when testing programs could be considered functional, the 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. And we have know that SARS-CoV-2 causes widespread vascular damage contributing to increased risk of life threatening heart attack and stroke.
All of these things can contribute to excess death and all of these things have the pandemic as root cause.
The full burden of the pandemic on the population of New Brunswick is becoming clearer. 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.
As we head heedlessly into the fourth wave of 2022, we can no longer possess any naive notion of endemicity or "mild" outcomes.
Our leaders have shown themselves to be uncaring, uneducated, and untrustworthy custodians of the public welfare and their manufactured narrative is eroding.
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