by Dr Claire Craig, Daily Sceptic:
The Singapore Government released data on its excess deaths in 2021, which is a window into what has caused excess cardiovascular deaths. Singapore is interesting because Covid deaths did not feature until September 2021. Prior to that date only 29 deaths had been attributed to Covid.
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It is worth noting that cardiovascular disease is not a prominent cause of death in Singapore. In 2021, 28% of deaths were from cardiovascular disease compared to 48% in England. Given those pieces of information we can predict what would happen under different hypotheses.
- Hypothesis 1: Covid caused excess cardiovascular deaths
- Hypothesis 2: Long covid caused excess cardiovascular deaths
- Hypothesis 3: Lack of access to healthcare from fear and lockdown
- Hypothesis 4: Vaccine related increase in cardiovascular disease
Hypothesis 1: Covid caused excess cardiovascular deaths
This is an odd hypothesis because there were no non-Covid excess cardiovascular deaths following Covid in England in 2020 (grey bars above purple line). But it’s a popular hypothesis so let’s go along with it.
Covid accounted for 3% of deaths in Singapore in 2021 but 14% in England. The lower proportion of deaths and the fact Covid did not really take off until Sept 2021 in Singapore means that if Covid is the cause we would expect fewer excess cardiovascular deaths in Singapore than in England.
Hypothesis 2: Long Covid caused excess cardiovascular deaths
If they were Long Covid related then we would expect an effect in England but not Singapore where only a tiny fraction had been infected by the end of 2021 and only for a short time.
Hypothesis 3: Lack of access to healthcare from fear and lockdown caused later excess cardiovascular deaths
Singapore did have a spring 2020 lockdown and some people stopped accessing healthcare. Emergency department visits reached a nadir of 75% of normal.
By contrast, in England the fall in emergency attendances reached as low as half of normal levels. Unlike in Singapore, in England a second period of lack of access in the second lockdown (November 2020) will also have had an impact. From early 2021, demand increased to above previous levels (despite the third lockdown from January to July). This cannot be attributed to ambulance delays as this was the total number of people sick enough to need to attend the emergency department.
Although Chris Whitty claimed that a reduction in statin prescriptions could have led to recent cardiac excess deaths, the levels of prescriptions were in fact maintained. Moreover, the British Heart Foundation estimated that a lack of preventative care would lead to an extra 12,000 heart attacks or strokes over a five year period, the vast majority of whom would not die, which is far too few to account for the increase.
