Part of it is the covid lockdowns accidentally cancelled the flu. A lot of frail people who would've died of flu in 20,21 are dying of the next available thing in 2022.
IOW the 2022 surplus deaths includes a one-off lump of deaths deferred from previous years.
... it was “not clear what might be driving this” but partly it may be explained by the flu all but disappearing in 2020 and 2021.
“There were less people dying from respiratory illness early on [compared with] what would have been pre-pandemic normal,” she said.
“Those people tend to be more frail and have other underlying conditions, so those people may have lived an extra year or two because they didn’t die of flu but might be dying now.
“That might be one of the things that’s going on.”
Part of it is the covid lockdowns accidentally cancelled the flu. A lot of frail people who would've died of flu in 20,21 are dying of the next available thing in 2022.
IOW the 2022 surplus deaths includes a one-off lump of deaths deferred from previous years.