Additional OECD Countries Excess Deaths 2023

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. We’ll take a look at the remaining OECD countries in alphabetical order.

Czechia is 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.”

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.

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.

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.

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 after six months to see what happens during the rest of 2023.

OECD.STAT DATA
https://stats.oecd.org/

MORE PEOPLE THAN EXPECTED ARE DYING IN CANADA IN 2023 FOR REASONS THAT ARE NOT YET CLEAR
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-excess-deaths-covid-canada/

GREATER EXCESS MORTALITY AFTER HURRICANES
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/08/230816160000.htm

ENGLAND'S HEATWAVES SEE HIGHEST EVER EXCESS DEATHS AMONG ELDERLY
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/englands-heatwaves-see-highest-ever-excess-deaths-among-elderly-2022-10-07/

CZECHS SO FAR AVOID WORST OF THE PANDEMIC DESPITE LENIENT LOCKDOWN
https://www.euronews.com/2020/05/08/coronavirus-czechs-so-far-avoid-worst-of-covid-19-despite-lenient-lockdown

MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn