Cold and Natural Gas Prices a Contributor to Excess Deaths in UK and Elsewhere?
And a bit on Sweden Birth Rates
So we have all heard the alarming news of excess deaths in Europe and UK with up to 36% excess deaths in England the first 2 weeks of January.
Exceptions seems to be lightly vaxxed Bulgaria and heavily vaxxed (but 2020 lockdown free ) Sweden .
Meanwhile in the US which is heavily if not highly vaxxed , US excess deaths are still high, albeit lower. Unfortunately US data lags a bit but December looks like it will be no higher 10-15% and January might be higher.
One key difference between Europe, UK and US is the cost of heating your home is much lower in US. In those countries relying on unregulated or loosely regulated natural gas prices people face the choice of cold homes to full bellies and buy medicine. Cold kills.
In December, 1,000 people died as a result of living in a cold home in England.
Analysis by the End Fuel Poverty Coalition shows that the levels of excess winter deaths caused by cold homes exceeded those seen in December 2021.
Soaring energy prices force many households to put their heating on fewer times per week.
The report suggests for one week last month, excess deaths exceeded the levels seen in December 2020, when the Covid restrictions were still in place.
Campaigners say there were 1,047 excess winter deaths, up from 768 in December 2021.
In December 2020 there were 1,518 deaths.
Simon Francis, Co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, commented: “The energy bills crisis has its roots in Westminster and the government’s failure over decades to help us insulate our homes and secure a renewable-led energy grid.
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/01/20/cold-homes-lead-to-excess-deaths-amid-energy-crisis/
Lest you think this is just cover for the vaccines the below article is pre-Covid/Vaccine, pre-Russian Invasion/Sanctions in February , 2020
On average, there are 32,000 more deaths between December and March than the rest of the year. Many have perished because of the refusal of a society with abundant wealth and resources to provide for its most vulnerable citizens. An average of 9,700 deaths each year are believed to be caused by living in a cold house, according to research by National Energy Action (NEA) and the environmental group E3G.
According to its figures, that is as many as those whose lives are cut short by breast or prostate cancer. While, sadly, we do not have the ability to cure all forms of cancer, we do have the means to ensure all have a warm home. Indeed, 6,900 of those deaths were linked to the 25% coldest homes in the country.
Poverty kills: this isn’t hyperbole, but fact. Some 10% of the total deaths, significantly more than 3,000, are directly linked to fuel poverty itself. These are older people – perhaps those who survived war, and who helped build the country – dying of cold because they don’t have the money to pay their energy bills.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/27/dying-cold-europe-fuel-poverty-energy-spending
Much has been made of the lack of Excess Deaths in Bulgaria. Credit is given to a lower vaccination rate. Although Bulgaria can get quite cold in Winter its Energy Markets are regulated and prices are not excessive compared its some of the northern European and UK states experiencing excess deaths
Below are some clippings about Bulgarias situation. Surely the low vax rate helps, but having a warm home in winter is important too
Thermal power plants generate 48.9% of electricity, followed by nuclear power from the Kozloduy reactors (34.8%) and renewable sources (16.3%).[293]
Bulgaria uses about 3 billion cubic meters of gas per year, less than 1 percent of Europe’s overall usage. The fuel distributed by state-run Bulgargaz goes to industrial uses, like fertilizer and glass production, and powers the capital of Sofia’s heating. (Other cities have privately owned gas heating or rely on coal-fired district heating plants.)
There will be no change in the prices of heat and electricity from January 1, 2023, which is of key importance for consumers in a regulated market. In this way, the energy regulator helps to maintain prices in our country, as a major factor in inflationary processes throughout Europe are the prices of energy carriers", said the chairman of the Commission, Ivan Ivanov, at the open meeting held on December 30, 2022.
Bulgaria’s utilities regulator has approved a 34 per cent decrease in gas prices in the country for the month of October, setting the new price at 233.36 leva a MWh, excluding transportation costs, excise and value-added tax.
The Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) said on October 1 that the price cut was the result of “the very competitive price conditions for the long-term contract for delivery of natural gas from Azerbaijan.”
According to the regulator, with the start of commercial operations of the Greece-Bulgaria inter-connector gas pipeline on October 1, the commission was able to factor the full amount of gas under the Azeri contract.
Previously, Bulgaria was only using 30 per cent of the one billion cubic metres a year contracted from Azerbaijan, due to the limited capacity of its link-up to the Greek gas grid.
The Azeri gas price formula is tied to oil prices for the previous six months and is not dependent on the market price fluctuations on European gas hubs, EWRC said.
Additionally, state-owned gas trader Bulgargaz was able to source gas deliveries for the Balkan gas hub at “very good prices,” the regulator said.
The company will also receive a liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo in October, meaning that it secured three separate sources of gas, as the regulator repeatedly urged it to do during the summer months.
(Photo: Marco Caliulo/sxc.hu)
https://sofiaglobe.com/2022/10/01/bulgaria-utilities-regulator-cuts-gas-prices-by-34-for-october-2022/
In Sweden gas is hardly used for heating homes. Swedes use district heating, or heat pumps, or electric heating, or wood, or oil to heat their homes. The district heating is provided mainly by burning wood and waste.
https://www.airclim.org/acidnews/sweden-without-gas
What is district heating? I had to google it.
District energy is a proven technology that has been around for decades. Most major cities have a district energy system and landmark buildings around the world receive thermal energy from a district system. District heating is an underground infrastructure asset where thermal energy is provided to multiple buildings from a central energy plant or plants. Steam or hot water produced at the plant is transmitted 24/7 through highly insulated underground thermal piping networks. The thermal energy is transferred to the building’s heating system, avoiding the need for boilers in individual buildings.
https://www.districtenergy.org/topics/district-heating
So Sweden and Bulgaria have a common reason for lower excess deaths this winter compared to other places where gas prices are mostly unregulated and relied on for heating.
Besides cold, there are other less convincing excuses for the excess deaths
Prof Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, told The Telegraph that Covid, flu, NHS wait times and, potentially, strike action had led to the high number of excess deaths.
.https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/excess-deaths-highest-since-pandemic-second-wave-and-less-than-5-per-cent-are-from-covid/ar-AA16Hdeq
It might just be there is a perfect Malthusian storm taking place that includes cold and unaffordable heating bills, Covid (and those awful Covid treatment protocols), the vaccines and shoddy all care medical services
We should not lose sight of the forest for the trees. Surely the vaccines are contributing in a big way but there are other ways they can kill you as well and energy deprivation is one of then
At some point Food will be next. Grocery prices rose in US 12% last year through November. Couple of more years of that and folks might have trouble keeping food on the table
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/12/13/business/grocery-prices/index.html
I was going to end it here but the Bad Cat reported on Swedens births
Sweden is an interesting case. Despite being over 70% full vaxxed, a bit higher than US, its not seeing any excess deaths, yet it is seeing a birth decline some are attributing to the vax
So the question is, given the vaccines are being attributed to excess deaths and declining births, why is it doing one (births) but not the other (deaths) in Sweden while in the US its the opposite (deaths but not births-at least through June although June did exhibit a decline)
Mysteries . Maybe we are all part of some great experiment and different countries and states are getting different cocktails?