Congratulations to Bulgaria and other low vaccination countries for having lowest excess deaths since 2022 in Europe!

Plus, my personal experience from there

UPDATE (2023/09/11): A discussion section including excess death data from high-vaccination countries has been added to provide a comparative benchmark with low-vaccination countries. In this context, Canada, a country with one of the highest vaccination rates and some of the strictest measures, is observed to have one of the highest excess mortality rates among high-vaccination countries since 2022. On the other hand, Sweden, a nation that did not implement lockdowns and mask mandates, is noted to have one of the lowest excess mortality rates among high-vaccination countries, although it remains higher than that observed in most low-vaccination countries.

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I have relatives in Bulgaria and went there with my daughter in Summer 2021 -
What a shock it was then for both of us - Flying from Covid-paranoid Canada with people in masks everywhere to the country where people seemed to be living just as they used to live, like nothing happened… No masks anywhere…

Welcome to Bulgaria - the country where people did not wear masks, few vaccinate themselves against covid and who now has one of the lowest excess deaths rate in Europe.! - We loved being there in summer of 2021 (Right image shows us doing hand-stands on p-bars on a crowded beach on the Black Sea)

Now I just learnt that they also had one of the lowest vaccinations rates in Europe, and … also (incidentally?) one of the lowest excess mortality rates too since 2022!

Main observation

Data sources:

• https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

• https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-average-baseline?country=BGR~GBR~SVK~DEU

Pictures tell it all…

Vaccination rates

Excess deaths for Bulgaria

Bulgaria is one of few countries in Europe who has negative excess deaths rate since 2022. In Eastern Europe, several other countries also have it negative. The only other country that has it negative now in Western Europe is Sweden,

Bulgaria in comparison with Canada and UK

It is noted that UK and Canada, which are among the most vaccinated countries in the world, also have some the highest excess death rates since 2022...

It is also noted that Canada is far behind in reporting its deaths data, compared to most other countries. More analysis related to canada is provided in the desicussion secion

More details on success of low-vaccination countries:

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Discussion (Added 2023/09/11)

This article does not intend to suggest that COVID vaccines (or COVID vaccines alone) are responsible for the higher excess death rates in low-vaccination countries. Clearly, several other factors come into play, which are particularly relevant to these low-vaccination nations. For instance, these countries are located in Eastern Europe, where people tend to eat less junk food and spend more time outdoors. Additionally, there is often a lower reliance on pharmaceutical products and a greater preference for holistic remedies in those countries. Moreover, due to their historical experiences, the ability to discern truth from state-funded propaganda and vendor-driven advertisements is often more pronounced in these countries compared to their more developed Western European counterparts. All of these factors could contribute to reducing the number of deaths. Critically also, there were no lockdowns and mask mandates in low-vaccination countries, which as shown in Sweden, was another major factor contributing to lower death rates in those countries.

More details on Sweden’s success and failure of other high-vaccinated countries

For comparison with low-vaccination countries, below are shown excess deaths data from several high-vaccionation countries.

It can be observed that of all these countries Sweden has the lowest number of excess deaths since 2022, albeit the data is not conclusive, as no data for 2023 is yet available for Sweden. Lets see why this could be the case…

Sweden in comparison with Bulgaria and neighbouring high-vaccination countries

Key observations:

It is noted that, even though Sweden has the same high-vaccination rate as other West European countries, it is the only country in Western Europe that did not implement lockdowns and mask mandates, much like its Eastern European counterparts.

Furthermore, Sweden did not recommend booster shots. That is, Sweden achieved its high vaccination rate primarily through initial doses, suggesting that these initial doses were potentially considerably safer than subsequent ones.

More on the Sweden success from The Hill (the premier source for policy and political news).

More evidence on detrimental effect of covid restrictions:
https://iea.org.uk/publications/did-lockdowns-work-the-verdict-on-covid-restrictions

Data from Canada

In conclusion, let’s also remind ourselves about the excess deaths situation in Canada.

For this we can use the Vital Statistics WebApp that I built with with my data science colleagues during the lunch and learn sessions at the end of year 2021. This WebApp can be accessed from any of the links below:

• https://o-canada.shinyapps.io/vitals

• https://open-canada.github.io/Apps/vitals

• https://open-canada.github.io/vitals/app

There one will be able to observe that Canada experienced a drastic increase of excess deaths (which is the difference between red line and black line) in all provinces starting from the end of year 2021, which is when Omicron started and which is aalso is when vaccination has been mandated in Canada.

The picture below, taken from the App, shows deaths per million. However, it should be noted the population in Canada has increased since 2021 from 38 to 40 million (mainly because of influx of young new immigrants), and also that most people who died in excess numbers in 2020-2022 were elderly. This means that the observed increase of excess deaths since 2022 is mainly among young Canadians, which is in a agreement with data from UK and with drastic increase of reports of suddent deaths among young Canadians.

This is why so many Canadians want to know why this is happening and what went wrong. Are you one of them? I am. This is why I am following the efforts of the National Citizen’s Inquiry who will present their findings and Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Canada at the press conference on 14 September 2023.