In early 2021, Professor Martin Neil and I wrote about the striking difference in trends between the UK government's “official” data on COVID-19 case numbers and the numbers of 999 (emergency) and other ambulance call volumes for COVID-19 triage.
In our view, ambulance data is a much more reliable indicator of COVID-19 infections than “case” counts, and shows that there was a true peak in March 2020, but only a small seasonal increase thereafter. This contrasts with official claims that, for example, during the winter of 2020-2021, COVID-19 case numbers reached five times the March 2020 peak.
As a result, I was intrigued this week when David Scott in the UK column brought to my attention some very interesting data provided by Public Health Scotland on the number of cardiovascular incidents associated with ambulance services. This linkSelect to view the data Cardiovascular Select Scottish Ambulance Service from the top menu Select the data you want to search box.
data
It is possible to search for data by the various NHS Scotland reporting areas, but here we restrict our analysis to total figures for all Scottish reporting areas combined.
Overall, there has been a significant weekly increase in cardiovascular disease incidence in Scotland since mid-August 2020 (an average of around 30% increase compared to the same period in 2018-19), with a particularly significant peak between May and September 2021 (an increase of more than 60% compared to the same period in 2018-19).
