Cardiac Arrhythmias Explain Excess Deaths

Sky News reports, “Deaths due to an irregular heartbeat are likely to be one of the reasons more people than usual have been dying this year – with the number well above average so far.”

The number of deaths registered in England and Wales due to cardiac arrhythmias was more than usual for much of the first half of 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Excess deaths, or extra deaths, are the number of deaths that are above the long-term average for a particular week or month of the year.

There were 234 excess deaths due to an irregular heartbeat registered in March and 138 in April.

In both months this was the second highest number of excess deaths by cause, behind only those due to “ill-defined conditions” – a definition often used to cover symptoms such as old age and frailty.

The total number of deaths due to an irregular heartbeat was 37.1% above average in March and 23.1% in April – a sharp jump from 13.7% in January and 9.2% in February.

The percentages remained high in May and June (39.0% and 17.9%), but the number of excess deaths for this category ranked lower, in fifth and eighth place respectively.

In the report, Sarah Caul, ONS head of mortality analysis, said the figures had been

“driven by higher than expected numbers of deaths since March, which could be caused by a combination of factors.

“Across March, April and May, we saw increases in deaths due to cardiac arrhythmias, predominantly among those aged 80 and above.

“Further work needs to be done to understand any link between the long-term effects of Covid and increasing cardiac deaths.”

COVID-19 and Arrythmias

The paper, Management of Arrhythmias Associated with COVID-19, discussed that arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation, supraventricular tachycardia, complete heart block, and ventricular tachycardia occur in patients infected, recovering, and recovered from COVID-19.

Citing sources, the authors reported that atrial arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter comprised only 31% of electrophysiology consultations at the pandemic’s peak.

The more dangerous ventricular arrhythmias, like ventricular tachycardia, are only 7% of consults at the Columbia University Medical Center.

Ventricular tachycardia. Source: By Glenlarson – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51194100

However, not all who have COVID-19 will have arrhythmias. Studies have shown that ventricular arrhythmias happen only to those with structural heart disease or severe COVID-19.

Atrial fibrillation by itself is easy to control in the majority of cases. I cannot count how many atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular responses I have stabilized and survived.

So what explains the arrhythmic deaths?

Last July, I wrote an article, Complete Heart Block after the Pfizer COVID shot, where a man with lymphocytic myocarditis had several episodes of complete heart block.

The man with the heart block had extensive myocarditis, and I speculated that it may have involved the SA and AV node responsible for coordinated electrical conduction.

In another case report, Autopsy of a soldier who died of myocarditis after Pfizer COVID vaccination, a South Korean soldier was found dead in the barracks hours after receipt of the Pfizer shot. The difference between the man who survived the complete heart block and this soldier was that the soldier was found too late.

You may have read that myocarditis is rare among those who had COVID-19 injections. Still, one prospective study from Thailand, which I reported in Thai study shows a whopping 1,660 myocarditis cases per 100K COVID injections showed that myocarditis is much more common than reported.

Myocarditis and lethal arrhythmias also led to the early demise of a professional Japanese athlete. A professional athlete who died of fulminant myocarditis after the Moderna jab

Going back to the Sky News report,

Other leading causes to have contributed to excess deaths this year include ischaemic heart diseases, diabetes, and dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Again, the COVID-19 shots can be contributory. I wrote about them in,

Vascular Dementia

There is a type of dementia resulting from small strokes which are unnoticeable. Eventually the brain damage from the tiny strokes accumulates and presents as memory problems. Blood clots and damage to the blood vessels supplying the brain can do those. They are described in:

Excess Deaths not from COVID-19

Sara Caul says the excess deaths are not from COVID-19.

Covid-19 has been only partly responsible for extra deaths in recent months, the ONS said.

Of the 6,473 excess deaths in May, more than three-quarters (4,897 or 76%) were not due to coronavirus.

The proportion was even higher in June, with 82% not due to Covid-19 (2,900 of 3,516).

Mortality Displacement

It is also possible that the excess deaths are making up for fewer deaths from previous months. Again, from Sky News.

“Excess deaths do fluctuate over time and when looking at individual months in 2022, the number of deaths were below expected levels in January and February,” she added.

Total deaths registered in England and Wales were 10.3% below average in January and 7.3% below in February, but were above average in every month from March to June.

May and June saw a particularly high level of excess mortality, with deaths 15.4% and 8.6% above average respectively.

Despite the number of arrhythmias reported, it is still under-reported because many who are found dead suddenly died, especially the elderly, will not have the actual cause of death listed because of the lack of autopsies.

The US Death Rate in 2022

From Deadorkicking.com, which uses US government statistics, the death rate for 2022 is 10.1434. That is still higher than in 2019 at 8.6974 before the pandemic started.

The death rate is often expressed as the number of deaths per 1,000 of the population per year. So this year, 2022, there are almost two deaths more per 1,000 compared to 2019.

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References:

Sky News – More people have been dying this year due to irregular heartbeat, official figures suggest
Desai AD, Boursiquot BC, Melki L, Wan EY. Management of Arrhythmias Associated with COVID-19. Curr Cardiol Rep. 2020 Nov 24;23(1):2. doi: 10.1007/s11886-020-01434-7. PMID: 33231782; PMCID: PMC7685181.

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