Birth & Death data for August: good news and bad news
Our friends at Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare have just released the demographic data for August.
Good News
After five months of noticeable year-on-year (YoY) drops, live births went back up close to the 2021 level. Yeah, baby!
Hopefully, this positive trend will continue, since there’s been little change in the number of marriages YoY.
As I mentioned previously, the drop in marriages due to the Covid response in 2020 and 2021 was one cause of the drop in births in the first half of 2022.
Bad News
In August, deaths were up by 15.1% YoY: 135, 649 vs. 117,804.
What could have possible caused this? The top part of the below graph (hat-tip Kenji Fujikawa) shows monthly all-cause deaths in 2020, 2021, and 2022 along with the 2016-2020 average, highest, and lowest. The bottom part shows 3rd and 4th doses given to over 65s.
Funny how the same coincidence happened twice in the space of 7 months. I wonder if it’ll happen again?
I guess we won’t have long to find out.
It is funny how all cause deaths spike shortly after shots and that we see this all around the globe.