Unionist politician Paul Frew has told Gript that questions need to be asked and answered around excess deaths taking place in Northern Ireland and the UK.
The Democratic Unionist MLA says that mounting excess deaths seen in Britain and Northern Ireland represent a silent crisis. Mr Frew says he believes that the deaths are due to a number of factors, and must be given media coverage and subsequently investigated.
Official figures show that for 14 of the past 15 weeks, 1,000 excess deaths have been recorded in England and Wales on average each week; the majority of these deaths were not due to Covid.
Last month, Office for National Statistics (ONS) data prompted health experts in Britain to call for an urgent investigation into what is causing the excess mortality.
As reported by The Telegraph last week, “If the current trajectory continues, the number of non-Covid excess deaths will soon outstrip deaths from the virus this year — and be even more deadly than the omicron wave”.
The DUP politician said he started paying attention to the issue when he saw ONS figures from England and Wales a number of months ago. He could see from the data that excess deaths were taking place in Spring as opposed to during winter.
The fact that the deaths were occurring in the spring and coming into the summer sparked his concern. In recent weeks and months, he has drawn attention on social media for regularly reposting weekly ONS statistics, while declaring that the cause of the deaths must be investigated.
Excess deaths is a term used in epidemiology and public health that is used to describe the difference between the number of deaths in the current year and the ‘expected’ number of deaths. The ‘expected’ number of deaths is calculated by taking the average number of deaths over the last five years.
The standard approach is to compare with the average of the five years prior to the current year.
While excess deaths occur most years, the majority of deaths take place in the winter months, and deaths when deaths from flu and pneumonia peak. Mr Frew says that in Northern Ireland specifically, approximately 600 people who die each year represent an excess death that is usually attributed to the cold compared to summer time.
Whenever the MLA noticed that just over 18,000 excess deaths had occurred from week 17 to week 31 (25 April 2022 – 1 August 2022) alone in England and Wales, he said he became concerned that something was badly wrong.
“There has been a sustained and consistent rise in deaths above the seasonal average in Britain,” the MLA said.
Mr Frew said the way in which excess mortality has been measured in Northern Ireland means a direct comparison with statistics in England and Wales is not comparable.
Mr Frew said he believes that hundreds more people than usual could also be dying each week in Northern Ireland with Covid not to blame for the majority of deaths. However, because of the way excess mortality is measured in Northern Ireland, the figures do not fully reflect the reality of what is going on.
Mr Frew acknowledged that in Northern Ireland terms, there were just over 50 more deaths in 2021 than the year previously, but he said that the measuring criteria must be examined. The MLA said he wrote to NI Minister for Health Robin Swann to ask him whether NI figures regarding excess deaths were comparable to England and Wales. If it was found they were, he asked if Mr Swann would conduct an investigation into the deaths.
However, the Minister responded by writing him a letter stating that excess deaths in Northern Ireland were not comparable to those taking place in Britain, explaining that while excess mortality in England and Wales was in “double figures,” excess deaths in Northern Ireland were only sitting at 4.5%.
Mr Frew said he examined the figures again when he received this response. He claims that the average number of deaths in Northern Ireland is “always going to be lower” than England and Wales because of the way deaths are measured.
The ONS in England and Wales use a five-year average excluding 2020, and then add on a year to the start of the statistics. The reason for excluding 2020 is because 2020 saw an unusual spike in deaths which would upset the average and result in an anomaly.
Interestingly though, statistics for England and Wales show that 2021 also had a spike in deaths at the start of the year, during the second wave of Covid.
This means the ONS “are adding in some of those pandemic deaths but not all of them”, while in Northern Ireland, “we just do a five-year average clean-cut, so our average is always going to be lower than England and Wales,” according to Mr Frew.
“If you were to translate our deaths into the English and Welsh model for measurement, we’re similar in terms of the numbers of excess deaths,” he claims.
The MLA added that over the last week and a half to two weeks, Northern Ireland has actually surpassed Wales with regards to excess deaths. This, he says, means “something is clearly happening” during the summer months, resulting in deaths above the seasonal average. This does not bode well entering the winter months, he added.
He also says that the reasoning given by Health Minister Robin Swann for not conducting an investigation into excess mortality in the province is flawed because, at present, the numbers used by the Department of Health in NI to measure excess deaths do not give a “direct comparison” to England and Wales.
Mr Frew said he has written back to Mr Swann to say he is “perplexed” at his reasoning, because he has essentially measured “apples with oranges” and used this as a basis not to investigate excess deaths in the North.
“To me, good Government is knowing the facts, and acting on them,” Mr Frew added, adding that such an approach can save lives. “What is the point in recording statistics if you are not going to use them to populate policy?”
HAS ‘LOCKDOWN PHILOSOPHY’ CONTRIBUTED TO DEATHS?
Regarding why more excess deaths are taking place, the unionist politician insists he isn’t an expert who is in a position to suggest why the deaths are happening. He believes excess deaths across the UK could be driven by a combination of factors.
He explained that he believes decisions taken by the Government at the start of the Covid crisis are now coming back to bite. Government policies including lockdowns that kept people inside and deterred them from presenting at a hospital deprived many across the UK and Ireland of essential treatment and primary care, and are finally taking effect.
“I am frustrated that nobody in the mainstream media is asking questions – and nobody in our Government is inquiring of their officials as to why these deaths are taking place,” he added.
Mr Frew said that the roughly 1,000 excess deaths that took place in Northern Ireland last winter had several causes – including Covid, the cold weather, and what he described as “a Covid-only obsession in our health service”.
The MLA said he has been a long-standing critic of “lockdown philosophy” and said that the harms inflicted by periods of lockdown need to be acknowledged so as to ensure similar policy is not reintroduced.
“I have been totally opposed to lockdown philosophy for a long time. Granted, at the start, we [as politicians] didn’t know what we were expecting or what was coming down the line, but we knew within weeks that this virus was going to mutate. There was no way I was going to support a second lockdown and the measures which have been applied because they have caused serious harm”.
“With regard to excess deaths, I want to know if government policy has contributed to some of those deaths in relation to lockdown policy and the ‘Covid-only’ obsession in our health department,” the MLA said. He added that aside from deaths, those who may be suffering from mental health and other issues exacerbated by lockdowns “could run into the hundreds of thousands”.
“People are entitled to answers,” he added.
‘MEDIA HAS CONTRIBUTED TO A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF ANXIETY’
Speaking about the impact of Covid-related media coverage, particularly during the height of the Covid crisis, Mr Frew said that mainstream media outlets have a lot to answer for, and were responsible for building a culture of fear and trepidation.
“I believe that the media has contributed to a massive amount of anxiety out there,” he told us. “The media have pumped fear into living rooms for the past two years.”
Mr Frew said that daily press conferences to discuss Covid deaths meant that people ended up not being able to manage risk. He added that because of a message of fear being transmitted by the media and Ministers in the Government, it became “very easy” to introduce policies that, he believes, “hurt people tremendously”.
Now, he says the media must start asking questions around the handling of the pandemic as well as excess deaths.
“I want the Government here to sit up and take notice. If the media were to sit up and take notice themselves, then that would help apply the pressure”.
He said he has on occasion contacted media in Northern Ireland in relation to excess deaths, but to no avail.
“They may try to smear me as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ but as an elected representative, asking questions and scrutinising policy is my job. I am simply doing my job.
“I am simply posing the questions: ‘What is happening and why isn’t anyone taking notice?’” he added, pointing out a sustained focus from the media around Covid deaths during the pandemic, but not excess deaths that are not linked to Covid.
“If our media doesn’t do its job, our democracy loses out because the currency of democracy is information. If we shut down scrutiny, our democracy is lost”, the MLA said.
He also thanked smaller, independent media organisations for ‘holding the line’ when bigger and more powerful outlets are not doing so.