ABC News Falsly Claim Covid-19 Is "Key Contributor" To High Excess Deaths In Australia
Australian Bureau of Statistcs Says 8807 Extra Deaths in 2023 so far are "within normal bounds."
We are witnessing a new Covid vaccination offensive in Australia to not only downplay excess deaths but blame Covid for it and keep vaccinating. The vaccinations’ role in excess deaths is still not acknowledged or investigated.
ABC News Australia published this article on the 20th of December, 2023
The article cites no links to the source material, apart from the reverence to the “new” Australian Bureau of Statistics report (ABS),
The ABS released its latest report on 20/12/2023, the day Morris-Grant wrote the article. I used the downloadable spreadsheets from this report to calculate my numbers and to generate the graphs used in this article. I invite everyone to fact-check my calculations. You find the download buttons at the end of the article.
I have no special training as a statistician. But neither has the junior reporter Brianna-Morris Grant, who cobbled together this error-prone, non-cited, biased and cherry-picking propaganda piece.
However, the required calculations are straightforward and don’t need special skills except a working knowledge of Excel.
Let’s start with the headline.
Australia's mortality rate is more than 6pc higher than expected, a new Australian Bureau of Statistics report reveals
The national excess mortality rate for the first eight months of 2023 shows deaths are estimated at 6.1 per cent above expected levels.
Outright false.
I have no idea where she got the 6.1 % from. I have written an email asking for clarification and comments from Brianna, ABC News and ABS Head of Mortality Statistics Lauren Moran. Moran is quoted in the article saying that the COVID-19 adjusted excess deaths in 2023 (8807 cases) are “within normal bounds”. So far, no one replied.
ABC - Australia is a partner of the BBC Trusted News Initiative. We are supposed to trust them at face value, so I am unsure if they are still bothered with verifying facts or correcting mistakes. I keep you posted.
ABS’s latest report, linked above, covers nine months. However, Brianna refers to the “excess mortality rate for the first eight months.” in her article. So, from which report did she get her 6.1%?
The short answer is: From neither.
This is from the latest ABS report, issued on 20/12/2023, and they came up with 9.9%, not 6.1%.
I calculated it with the supplied spreadsheets and came up with 10.29%. Table 1:
But let’s not quibble over the 0.4% difference.
The previous ABS report, covering eight months, reports a 10.9% excess death rate, close to double the 6.1% she claims.
ABC is Australia’s most significant digital news provider, being read by a third of Australia's online population, with more than 6 million monthly readers.
ABC News has now been Australia’s No 1 digital news brand since January 2020 in overall monthly unique audience, and also on smartphones and among women.
ABC News was first ranked the top online news brand five years ago with a unique audience in July 2016 of 6.5 million Australians, or 33% of the active online population.
Millions of trusting and unexpecting ABC readers are falsely told that the Australian excess mortality rate is significantly lower than officially reported.
Whether this was an honest mistake or a deliberate attempt to influence the public opinion of Australia (disinformation) to downplay excess mortality is difficult to prove. But we definitely can point to professional neglect.
However, the first paragraph of the article indicates that this, indeed, is about a specific agenda:
COVID-19 is still a "key contributor" to higher death rates as new data reveals Australia's nationwide mortality rate is sitting at more than six per cent higher than expected.
Once again, this is an utterly unsupported claim without any data or sources to back it up. A “key contribution” is a significant and essential contribution.
The following graph shows the proportion of COVID-19 deaths to all deaths. Graph 1:
The green area is deaths classified as Covid-19
What exactly does classified as COVID-19 mean?
This has been a highly controversial and misleading issue since the beginning of the pandemic. The ABS defines the codes it uses in its report like this:
Deaths due to COVID-19 in this report have an underlying cause of either ICD-10 code U07.1 COVID-19, virus identified; U07.2 COVID-19, virus not identified as the underlying cause of death; or U10.9 Multisystem inflammatory syndrome associated with COVID-19.
Misleadingly, the ABS is still using all three codes to report Covid deaths in Australia, as demonstrated in this table from their webpage:
Code U07.2 clearly states that the virus was not identified as the underlying cause of death. And yet, it is used in tables by the ABS labelled “Deaths due to Covid-19.” In which universe is it okay to put logic on its head?
These fraudulent numbers highly exaggerate Covid deaths by an unknown factor, but there is no other choice. Keep that in mind when looking at the graphs. (Since then, I filed a Freedom of Information Request for “dying from Covid only” datasets.)
The following graph shows the exaggerated Covid classified deaths' “key contribution” to excess mortality (green area). Graph 2:
Below are the percentages in a graph. Graph 3:
Note: I excluded the September numbers because some negative weeks distorted the graph. However, all weeks are included in the average below.
The calculated average contribution of COVID-19-classified deaths to all excess deaths is 22%. Table 2:
Does 22% make COVID-19 - Classified Deaths a “key contributor” to the excess death rate?
This doesn’t consider the possibility that the vaccinations can cause a positive Covid-test. If the shots kill frail and older adults, they then would be classified as Covid-deaths. I am working on another article regarding this.
How much the wrong coding blows up the real Covid death numbers is impossible to say because the ABS is not disclosing the data. Just the fact that hospitals, hospices and rest homes still do regular Covid tests in Australia will guarantee that most dying people have a test done, no matter if they have symptoms or not. And, if the sensitive tests pick up the virus, contributing to the death or not, it will be classified as a Covid death.
But can we even call the false, fraudulent 22% a “key contributor” to Australia’s excess death crisis? And what about the other 78%? Shouldn’t we look at that to find the causes?
Any unbiased news report would at least consider the elephant in the room: A robust correlation between vaccine roll-out and access death. The graph below is from a comprehensive examination of this topic I published in February 2023. This article explores what the ABS tries to avoid at all costs, bordering on the ridiculous.
Hard raw data: There never was a Covid Pandemic in Australia in 2020
There Never Was A Covid Pandemic In 2020 This new analysis of raw, official, unmanipulated data from The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) confirms what many of us, who trust our own eyes and ears, have been suspecting for years: There never was a Covid pandemic in 2020. Let’s be clear: There was a virus that was making people sick and killing some p…
By 2021 and the roll-out of the vaccine, mortality increased dramatically.
Please note: Since the above graphs were published, the ABS changed their method to calculate the baseline. They included 2021 into the baseline, which lifts the baseline significantly and reduces the excess deaths accordingly—another misleading act.
Despite pretending to address this real-life tragic problem, the ABC article has a different agenda:
Distract from the actual cause of excess mortality, which is highly likely related to the vaccines, indicated by a robust correlation.
They are scaring people by implying that COVID-19 is dangerous and kills a significant amount of people in Australia, despite official ABS data showing the precise opposite. Even the exaggerated and falsely classified “dying with Covid” numbers are an almost neglectable contributor to the overall death rate in Australia.
Despite “officially” only contributing 22%, they try to shift the blame for excess death rates to COVID-19 to avoid looking at the real causes.
Of course, they don’t disclose this agenda openly. Instead, they use all the tricks from the nudge and propaganda handbooks, including outright lies, to lull their readers into believing their agenda. Here are some examples:
On unfounded fear from Covid:
COVID-associated deaths surpass 20,700 since 2020
There have now been 20,755 "death registrations" for people who "died from or with COVID-19", according to the ABS report.
Framing Covid-19 as the culprit that causes other diseases that increased significantly since the roll-out of the vaccines
"There were a further 4,283 people who died of other causes (e.g. cancer) but COVID-19 contributed to their death," it read.
"Chronic cardiac conditions were the most common pre-existing chronic condition for those who had COVID-19 certified as the underlying cause of death."
Using illogical woke DEI politics to explain excess death (they are left-leaning and know their readers).
The report also noted that throughout the pandemic "deaths have been higher in more disadvantaged areas and lower in less disadvantaged areas".
The report used SEIFA, a ranking system which analyses census information to "rank" socio-economic status in each area and give a snapshot from most to least disadvantaged (quintile 1 to quintile 5).
This doesn’t make any sense. There have been “disadvantaged areas” for decades, but excess death rates only started to climb after the vaccine roll-out in 2021.
Further, they downplay and minimize the excess death rate by cherry-picking and emphasizing random data points where it declined, repeatedly referring to how much lower it is now compared to 2022.
The ABS supports this in their reporting, doing the same thing.
In July and August this year, mortality "was close to expected … with some periods where mortality was lower than expected," said ABS Head of Mortality Statistics Lauren Moran.
This is factually wrong. In July 2023, we still had soaring excess death rates, as the graph below shows.
August still shows extra death rates well above zero and only dips below zero at the end of the month. She ignores that mortality was soaring for most of 2023 until the 20th of August.
Nationwide there were 137,048 deaths recorded in total by the end of September 2023, with "a considerably lower number of deaths [since June in 2023] compared to the same period in 2022,"according to the report.
Because it was incredibly high in 2022.
Specifically, males aged 0-44 "recorded an age-specific death rate … 8.0 per cent lower in January to September 2023" than both the baseline and the same period in 2022.
More cherry-picking.
But we get it. 2023 is not quite as bad as 2022. Could this be related to this, maybe? Vaccine uptake dropped dramatically in 2023.
While all the above lulls the mainstream reader slowly into a “it’s not so bad, and we can blame Covid and low socio-economic areas for higher than expected death rates”, they then slide in an outright lie:
"The number of deaths excluding deaths 'from' or 'with' COVID-19 for 2023 has been largely within normal bounds.
This is outrageous. It appears to originate from ABS Head of Mortality Statistics Lauren Moran. The graph below illustrates exactly these “normal bounds”. It is the brown area above the green area. It fluctuates between 250 and 600 extra dead people for most of the period. Is that “within normal bounds?”
Here are the numbers:
In the first nine months of 2023, an additional 8807 people died after the exaggerated Covid deaths had been taken off. This is an average of 232 people per week. This is equal to a domestic aeroplane crashing in Australia every week. For 38 weeks in a row. Killing all 232 people on board each time. Nothing to see here, folks. This “is largely within normal bounds,” according to Lauren Moran.
This is cynical at best and outright evil at worst.
If I had told anyone this story in 2018, no one, not in their wildest dreams, would have believed that something like this was possible. How is this possible now? Where will this end? How do we stop this?
A seemingly even bigger lie follows this, but the Excel spreadsheet doesn’t have the complete data set for 2022. If I can find it, I will see if I can debunk the following statement.
"Deaths due to COVID-19 (as identified on death certificates) were the main contributor to excess mortality during 2022. Excess mortality during this period corresponded with COVID-19 waves."
At first glance, it corresponds even closer to vaccination waves. I am working on this.
The agenda is clear - this is a media campaign to make the inconvenient massive excess death rates go away by blaming Covid for it. This is pushed by ABC News Australia and supported by Australia’s Bureau of Statistics.
Why are they not correctly investigating the excess deaths of tens of thousands of Australians, as it would have been standard practice before 2020?
The truth is like a lion, they say.
I have no doubt it will eventually prevail. I am just not sure how long it will take. But releasing and sharing it is the first step.
To check my calculations, please download:
The chart where they are including deaths where Covid 19 was not identified as a cause is all that people need to see to understand what is being done here. They believe Australians are fools and they know the average Aussie will not look at the data or question anything they say. I had a dude in Tassie last night trying to convince me that climate change is real and we are all going to burn up. He provided me a link to a COP28 presentation and another link to an article in the Guardian as his evidence, wait for it....... he is a science teacher in a high school. Says it all.
Stats NZ have suggested our 10% excess mortality is due to an increasing and ageing population. At first glance this explanation seems quite plausible. But when taking a closer look our population didn’t increase very much at all whilst the jab roll out was taking place because the borders were shut so tight even our own citizens had trouble coming home. Secondly, the population didn’t just start to rapidly age at the same time as the jab roll out.
Blame anything but the jab