Not one mention of fuel poverty in the entire article. Love the photo caption.
Maybe, just maybe. IT’S THE WRONG KIND OF COLD~ctm
Call for more NHS resources as elderly people and women among most vulnerable
Snow in Derbyshire last December. The temperatures last winter are thought to have been partly to blame for the excess deaths. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA
There were 50,100 excess deaths in England and Wales last winter, when there was a prolonged spell of extreme cold, making it the highest number since 1976, figures have shown.
The Office for National Statistics said flu and the ineffectiveness of the flu vaccine were key reasons for the rise of excess winter deaths in 2017-18.
The deaths occurred during the NHS’s most serious “winter crisis” for many years. A lack of staff and beds meant all types of health services, particularly hospitals, were unable to cope with both the number of patients needing treatment and the severity of many of their conditions.
Women and people aged over 85 were among those most likely to die last winter, although the rate of winter deaths among males aged up to 64 doubled in just a year, the ONS found. A third of the deaths were due to serious breathing difficulties, including flu, asthma and bronchitis.
The 50,100 excess deaths were about 15,000 (45.1%) more than those that occurred in 2016-17 and double the total in 2015-16.
Nick Stripe, a specialist in health analysis and life events at the ONS, said: “It is likely that last winter’s increase was due to the predominant strain of flu, the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine and below-average winter temperatures.”
Doctors and groups representing older people said too little was being done to keep older people warm and safe, and to give the NHS the resources it needs.
Caroline Abrahams, Age UK’s charity director, said: “A toxic cocktail of poor housing, high energy prices and ill-health can make winter a dangerous time for many older people, and tragically it is the oldest and those who are the most vulnerable who particularly suffer the consequences.
“Last winter, there were nearly 46,000 excess winter deaths among people aged 65 and over – a shocking 92% of all excess deaths – equating to 379 older people a day. These distressing figures are now the highest we’ve seen in over 40 years.”
HT/JH, AB
Who decides what is and isn’t excess?
How many times are places where people ‘have lots of children’ slagged off ?
Is not the reason for ‘lots of children’ that some of those children will return the favour/custom their parents did them? i.e. Look after them But no. Westerners don’t have children because they are Rich & Clever.
Run that by me again….
Are these folks not dying because they are eating, being TOLD to eat, a sh1t and nutrient free diet.
(One composed of refined & fruit-derived sugar and cooked starch)
Lack of proper nutrition – Death – in any critter. Even rich & clever ones.
Are these folks feeling the cold because their body’s thermoregulatory system has been trashed by a lifetime of (haha) Moderate Alcohol Consumption?
How many of these folks are dying while living alone? Is it beyond belief that they were lonely.
Lonely people run exactly the same risks as stressed people – especially that they self-medicate on substances that they find/discover makes them ‘feel better’
Hence Comfort Food = Junk Food = starch, sugar & vegetable oil.
is it beyond belief that they are simply ‘letting themselves die’?
They are lonely, nothing good to eat and EVERYBODY, including their own children are so effing selfish, money & power grubbing and generally ‘out on the make’ (or telling everybody else how to live their lives) that they effectively just ‘end it all’ at their own hands.
Especially when the only friend they might have is a TV – and what’s on there.
Junk. Doom. Gloom. More junk. Advertising tat. Dysfunction etc etc etc.
Blame them for wanting out…….. can you.
I can tell you that the cold was far more extreme in December 1981 and the winters of 1984/5 and 1985/6, not to mention December 2010. So cold per is not the primary driver of excess winter deaths.
March 2018 was cold, but not extreme. The rest of the winter was not extreme in the least.
I suspect poverty has more to do with this than temperature, since even in average winters, inability to heat homes will lead to consequences.
Fair points Rhys.
Derbyshire is more or less covered by the northern part of the CET series. It’s pretty much central England moved slightly north. Using CET as an approximation, temperatures in that region were just 0.3 C lower than average (using 1981-2010 as the base) in winter 2017/18. The winters of 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2012/13 were all colder in CET than last winter.
Whatever caused those extra regrettable deaths, it wasn’t unusual coldness. Likely it was just what the Office for National Statistics said it was, as quoted in the article: “… flu and the ineffectiveness of the flu vaccine were key reasons for the rise of excess winter deaths in 2017-18”.
Poor nutrition is incredibly debilitating. Ginger, Garlic & Chillies keep the winter away.
https://thewoksoflife.com/2016/01/ginger-scallion-oil-with-chilies/
Living alone does not mean being lonely. I enjoy it & I just turned 76. What’s mine is my own. I entertain friends at home & socialise in many places, but I do not feel lonesome when I return home. Instead, I relish hopping into a snug, comfortable, electrically heated bed, reading for a while & then sleeping until I am ready to enjoy another day. I feel free to do this, because true freedom is the willingness to accept the results of one’s thoughts & actions. Cowards die many times. A brave man dies but once.
I do fear for anyone living in old drafty houses with decadal cold cycles coming their way….and misguided leaders at the helm making excuses.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20SST-NorthAtlantic%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20SST-NorthAtlantic%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
I’m sure that someone will be able to show that the flu virus was more active due to global warming. Oh, wait, it was colder?
CO2 warming, we’re told, is from elevation of the emission height with a decrease in the temperature thereof; thus the stratosphere (where the emission height is located) cools, less energy is electromagnetically radiated to space – and the planet warms.
Fair enough. So that’s why for the last few decades the stratosphere has been cooling and the earth’s climate warming.
Until now. Now, radiosonde data show that in the most recent decade, stratosphere temperature is increasing. What does this mean? Should be obvious, but apparently it’s not.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JD028901#.W_N0tbiL7tA.twitter
Parsimonious explanation: warming has stopped, now earth’s climate is cooling.
Explanation that we’re given instead: either another factor – ozone – just cut in and caused the change. Or, although the radiosondes show stratosphere warming, higher up where they don’t measure (so we have no data, just conjecture) – it’s still cooling.
What’s so horrifying about the parsimonious explanation, that folks have to perform such contortions to escape from it?
Last year winter cold deaths in the UK were the highest for 40 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/30/excess-winter-deaths-in-england-and-wales-highest-since-1976
Perhaps fewer people than normal died in the glorious summer of 1976, kept alive by the warmth for a few extra months, and died in the winter instead.
Be the excess winter deaths on the heads of Jim Hansen, Al Gore, Michael Mann, Kevin Trenberth, Phil Jones, and all the rest of the “cause”- forwarding science-betrayers.
And on those who support them. That includes you, Nick Stokes and Steve Mosher. The excess deaths be on your head, too.