It has lengthy been identified that many extra folks within the UK die within the winter months than at different instances of the yr. It has by no means been a secret. [some emphasis, links added]
12 months after yr, the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (ONS) printed the info to show it.
That’s, till 2022, when the annual publications abruptly ended, with none official rationalization so far as I’m conscious.
It took a Freedom of Data request to winkle out the true story – that is the ONS response in February 2026 to that FoI:
You requested:
I want to request the next recorded data held by the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics:
• The overall variety of extra winter deaths (or extra winter mortality determine) in England and Wales for the winter interval 2024/25 (outlined as December 2024 to March 2025, or the usual ONS winter definition if completely different).
• If accessible as a part of the above or individually recorded, a breakdown of those extra winter deaths by age group, significantly for these aged 65 and over (or State Pension age / older individuals / OAPs equal).
• Any provisional, estimated, or ultimate figures for cold-related mortality (or deaths attributable to chilly climate / low temperatures) within the UK (or England and Wales) through the winter of 2024/25, together with any modelling, estimates, or direct counts if held.
If the total annual extra winter mortality bulletin or dataset masking winter 2024/25 has not but been printed, please present:
• The present anticipated publication date or launch schedule for this information.
• Any provisional or interim figures, weekly/month-to-month breakdowns, or associated surveillance information already held that point out extra mortality through the related winter months.
We mentioned:
Thanks on your request.
Beforehand printed annual information on extra winter mortality from 1950 to 2022 can be found in our winter mortality in England and Wales Statistical bulletins, utilizing the surplus winter deaths (EWD) and extra winter mortality index (EWMI) measures. Nevertheless, this launch was discontinued following the session that the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (ONS) ran with the Division for Well being and Social Care (together with the Workplace for Well being Enhancements and Disparities), NHS Enterprise Companies Authority (NHSBSA), UK Well being Safety Company (UKHSA) and NHS England. This was due to limitations with the methodology used to supply these measures.
The UKHSA printed a chilly mortality monitoring report, England: winter 2024 to 2025 annual report on 18 February 2026 at 9:30 am. This report gives the primary nationwide estimates of mortality related to low temperatures throughout chilly climate episodes in England over the winter season. These outcomes are meant to tell public well being preparedness and help motion to cut back well being impacts in periods of chilly climate in England.
Limitations with the methodology? That’s ridiculous. They’re gaslighting the general public. The ONS methodology was each easy and unarguable.
That is how they outlined it:
There isn’t a want for classy statistics.
The session the ONS speaks of was clearly a political stitch-up from the beginning, directed by the NHS and the UKHSA. It was the latter, it’s possible you’ll recall, which printed the pretend heatwave dying information just lately.
The indisputable fact that many extra folks die in winter months has lengthy been a humiliation to the Authorities’s Local weather Agenda.
Makes an attempt to scare the general public in regards to the well being implications of a hotter local weather are invariably met with the response {that a} hotter local weather will save lives general.
In the meantime, foolish amber alerts from the Met Workplace a couple of little bit of sunny climate are routinely mocked and ignored, with hundreds flocking to the seashores.
So, how you can do away with this pesky extra winter dying information? Easy – simply cease publishing it.
As a substitute, because the ONS notes, we should now depend on the UKHSA, the Authorities’s UK Well being Safety Company, to offer us with the data. And right here is their first annual bulletin, printed in February 2026:
Miraculously, extra winter deaths have fallen from tens of hundreds to 2,544.
How has this been achieved?
As a substitute of analyzing mortality all through the entire of the winter, they’ve merely checked out just some days when it was extraordinarily chilly.
As I revealed earlier this month, the UKHSA falsely claimed that 1,504 died final summer time. In different phrases, in accordance with the UKHSA, roughly the identical variety of folks die from warmth as die from chilly.
Though the ONS not publishes the surplus dying information, the month-to-month mortality statistics on which it’s based mostly are nonetheless accessible.
Utilizing the identical methodology because the ONS, I can affirm that the winter extra deaths in 2024/25 totalled 27,540. Not the two,544 that the UKHSA would really like you to consider.
In line with the ONS, they’re “the UK’s largest unbiased producer of official statistics and its acknowledged nationwide statistical institute.”
If they’re really “unbiased,” why have they bowed the knee to authorities calls for to stop the publication of politically inconvenient statistics?
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