Release Of The Philippines 2022 Vital Statistics On 18 August 2022 (as of 31 May '22), Shows that January 2022 Deaths Are 17.3% Higher Than Forecast; 19.2% Higher than January 2021! RAISE THE ALARM!

On a positive note, January 2022 Births are nearly 6% higher than in January 2021; perhaps the baby bust trend of 2020 and 21 is slowing! The deaths should raise an alarm signal of an ongoing assault!

The Philippines Statistics Authority, PSA, released the 2022 Vital Statistics up to 30th April, as of 31 May 2022 yesterday. That is the 3rd release of vital statistics this year. The data provided is still clearly very incomplete, with totals as set out in the Table, and considerable changes will still be expected.

However, the January data can be preliminarily analyzed with respect to historical January trends. This analysis is for the entire Philippines for January only, without any breakdowns by regions or provinces yet. I will save such analysis for when more complete information is available.

There were 107,275 Registered January Births as of 31st May 2022. This represents an increase of 5,992 births compared to the registered births in January 2021, a positive trend; it will be ideal to see a stabilization of the large drop in births that were observed in 2020 and 2021. Hopefully stabilization of birth rates will continues into the rest of 2022.

January 2022 deaths are already higher than the 2021 January Deaths, with an increase of 19.32% (11,133 additional deaths). The spikes in death observed in 2021 came only in March and onwards, and the January data was “normal”. We can note from the historical data that there was a large spike in deaths in January 2019 (actually, for the whole year of 2019). We didn’t hear about that in the media, or have any lockdowns or restrictions!

The last figure sets out the forecast deaths for January 2022, based on historical death patterns for the six years from 2015 to 2020. The January 2021 registered deaths were well within the forecast levels. The January 2022 registered deaths already exceed the forecast levels by 17.3% (10,150). Both the 2021 and 2022 data are still preliminary and will be further adjusted (worsen) with late death registrations.

DOH has reported 2,395 Covid-19 Deaths in January 2022 (as of 30 July 2022). These Covid-19 Attributed deaths are not sufficient to explain January’s excess deaths.

Further, the Omicron variant is generally very mild and well tolerated. Thus, its victims would necessarily have had multiple severe life threatening and life-limiting comorbidities, and their deaths would be more likely part of the “normal deaths” that are expected in the population.

What should we know and can we conclude from this preliminary data presentation?

1. Deaths in populations are usually very stable over time with only small low single digit % changes from year to year.

2. Even when there is an outbreak of fatal illness in a community, the typical pattern is that any excess deaths will be followed by a period with lower than usual deaths. Vulnerable persons within the population died earlier than expected to create the peak, and then there will be lower deaths until a new vulnerable population builds up. This is a normal life and death pattern.

3. Given that 2021 had extremely high excess deaths in the range of 38 to 43% depending on assessment methodology, the natural pattern should be a return to normal, or even lower than normal death patterns in 2022, if the factor causing the excess deaths had been removed.

4. Spikes in deaths may also be caused by natural disasters, war, famine, and extreme climatic changes. None of these were applicable in January 2022.

5. The excess deaths in January 2022 are an indication that whatever was causing the excess deaths in the Philippines in 2021 is still in effect!

6. Data release in 2022 has already been considerably delayed. In 2021 data was released nearly every month! Ie. data as of last day of previous month was released about 3rd week of the following month. It is now past mid-August 2022. Data has only been released as of 31 May 2022, meaning data is at least 2 months behind optimal schedule! The data release needs to be caught up with a concerted effort from all involved parties! Alarms signals cannot be detected (early) if insufficient data is released!

7. Excess deaths above 10% are already an alarm signal. We have an alarm signal!

RAISE THE ALARM PLEASE! THE FILIPINO POPULATION AT RISK!