Governments can, and do, manipulate data, so once again, I have searched for data that they cannot control.
This time I am comparing excess deaths across Europe for the year 2020. I have copied the following data from “the bmj”(British Medical Journal) website at https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n799
Table 1
Top 10 European countries ranked by relative cumulative age-standardised excess mortality rates (%) in 2020, to 26 June (week 26) and 18 December (week 51)
| Mortality rate to week 26 | Mortality rate to week 51 | ||
| England | 7.3 | Poland | 11.6 |
| UK | 6.7 | Spain | 10.6 |
| Spain | 5.9 | Belgium | 9.7 |
| Scotland | 5.3 | Bulgaria | 8.9 |
| Belgium | 3.5 | Czech Republic | 8.4 |
| Italy | 3.4 | Slovenia | 8.2 |
| Wales | 2.6 | England | 7.8 |
| Sweden | 2.3 | UK | 7.2 |
| Northern Ireland | 2.2 | Austria | 5.7 |
| Netherlands | 1.9 | Scotland | 5.7 |
It is fascinating reading. Despite having no lockdown, Sweden ranks very low, while the UK, with one of the most draconian lockdowns, are among the highest. You can manipulate covid death figures; you can’t manipulate these.
