---
title: "Expensive energy may have killed more Europeans than covid-19 last winter"
type: "post"
post_id: "5018"
slug: "expensive-energy-may-have-killed-more-europeans-than-covid-19-last-winter"
canonical: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/09/19/expensive-energy-may-have-killed-more-europeans-than-covid-19-last-winter/"
markdown_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/09/19/expensive-energy-may-have-killed-more-europeans-than-covid-19-last-winter.md"
json_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/09/19/expensive-energy-may-have-killed-more-europeans-than-covid-19-last-winter.json"
txt_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/09/19/expensive-energy-may-have-killed-more-europeans-than-covid-19-last-winter.txt"
published: "2023-09-19T11:39:40+00:00"
modified: "2023-09-19T11:39:40+00:00"
author: "penny2"
categories:
  - "Uncategorized"
tags:
  - "Covid"
  - "global warming"
  - "perception management"
  - "Technocracy"
site_name: "PFYT2"
publisher: ""
language: "en-US"
generator: "easyPress Markdown"
generator_version: "1.0.6"
---
1-[Economist.com](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/05/10/expensive-energy-may-have-killed-more-europeans-than-covid-19-last-winter)

2-[Archive.ph](https://archive.ph/9BWwT)

**Check the charts included at the second link above**

> **High energy prices can cost lives. `They discourage people from heating their homes properly, and living in cold conditions raises the risk of cardiac and respiratory problems`**. In November *The Economist* predicted that **expensive power might result in between 22,000 and 138,000 deaths during a mild winter. Unfortunately, we appear to have been correct.**
> 
> To assess **how deaths last winter compare to previous ones we have used a common measure of mortality: excess deaths. Comparing actual deaths with the number we might expect given mortality in the same weeks of 2015-19, we found that deaths across Europe were higher than expected. Across 28 European countries we investigated, there were 149,000 excess deaths between November 2022 and February 2023, equivalent to a 7.8% increase.**
> 
> Several factors might explain this rise. **Among those that died last winter, nearly 60,000 were recorded as covid-19 deaths. The disease probably contributed—directly or indirectly—to more, but it is unlikely that it can account for all of last winter’s surge**. Between March 2020 and September 2022 the official covid death count was 79% of total excess deaths among our 28 countries. Last winter it was 40%.
> 
> **The weather has also affected the number of deaths. A cold snap in December was accompanied by a rise in mortality. A drop of 1°C (1.8°F) in the average temperature over a three-week period is associated with a 2.2% rise in total deaths.** However, last winter was milder than the average of 2015-19, so the cold alone cannot be responsible for the additional deaths.

> **`It appears that high energy prices might have had an effect. Looking across countries reveals that those with the highest excess deaths typically experienced the biggest increases in fuel costs.`**

> To disentangle energy costs from covid and temperature changes we have built a statistical model. Our model also accounts for a country’s demographics, the number of covid deaths prior to last winter and historic underreporting of those deaths.

> **We estimate that a price rise of around €0.10 per kWh—about 30% of last winter’s average electricity price—was related to an increase in a country’s weekly mortality of around 2.2%**. **If electricity last winter had cost the same as it did in 2020, our model would have expected 68,000 fewer deaths across Europe, a decline of 3.6%.**