The graph above shows US weekly mortality for the past 7 years, starting in January 2014. The pink line has the deaths in New York City and New Jersey removed, and the blue line shows the entire United States. When New York City and New Jersey's deaths are removed, the rise and fall is similar from year to year including in 2020, with no alarming increase even with the unusual late season spike in deaths. This is extremely similar to the all-cause mortality for Canada as displayed by Rancourt et al in their Figure 1a. This anomalous late season spike started in late March, immediately after the March 13 2020 declaration of a pandemic, much later than the standard winter rise, and was extremely severe in a few areas such as New York City and New Jersey.
However, the spike was small or even nonexistent in about half of the states such as South Dakota and Iowa, including all seven states that never issued stay-at-home orders, despite them having high numbers of "cases". This lack of increase in most states is why the pink line's peak in 2020 is about the same height is the peak in winter 2017-18. Here are links to the graphs for each of the seven states with no stay-at-home orders, including comments under each one: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
The March 2020 spike is widely claimed to be caused by the covid-19 virus, but Briand explains that the simultaneous appearance of spikes in discrete regions thousands of miles apart is not consistent with viral spread, and suspiciously occurred immediately after draconian social isolation policies were adopted. The second smaller peak in summer 2020, seen just after the March peak, is caused mainly by a surge in deaths from non-natural causes such as suicides, homicides, and drug overdoses, as indicated in Briand's graph 12 (page37), and also discussed throughout Rancourt et al's paper as a surge in deaths in young Canadian males in summer 2020 (Rancourt et al).
Briand's primary conclusion is that when New York and New Jersey are removed, "The total number of deaths in 2020 was not unexpected, nor alarming" (page 15), but she also asks two key questions about the spike of late March 2020: "Are these unfamiliar patterns due to covid-19 or the reoccurring fear campaigns?", and "Have covid-19 measures been blindly adopted and applied, top-down, in haste, and short sightedly?" (Briand 2021, pages 53-54). Rancourt et al are more direct, stating “We conclude that the ‘covid-peak’ was palpably induced by the pandemic response.” (Page 47). And in a separate section that “We believe that it is not a coincidence that all the “covid peaks” started their sharp and sudden surges immediately (within 1 week or so) after the WHO’s March 2020 pronouncement of a pandemic. We believe viruses did not suddenly everywhere act on cue” (Rancourt et al 2021).
However, the spike was small or even nonexistent in about half of the states such as South Dakota and Iowa, including all seven states that never issued stay-at-home orders, despite them having high numbers of "cases". This lack of increase in most states is why the pink line's peak in 2020 is about the same height is the peak in winter 2017-18. Here are links to the graphs for each of the seven states with no stay-at-home orders, including comments under each one: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
The March 2020 spike is widely claimed to be caused by the covid-19 virus, but Briand explains that the simultaneous appearance of spikes in discrete regions thousands of miles apart is not consistent with viral spread, and suspiciously occurred immediately after draconian social isolation policies were adopted. The second smaller peak in summer 2020, seen just after the March peak, is caused mainly by a surge in deaths from non-natural causes such as suicides, homicides, and drug overdoses, as indicated in Briand's graph 12 (page37), and also discussed throughout Rancourt et al's paper as a surge in deaths in young Canadian males in summer 2020 (Rancourt et al).
Briand's primary conclusion is that when New York and New Jersey are removed, "The total number of deaths in 2020 was not unexpected, nor alarming" (page 15), but she also asks two key questions about the spike of late March 2020: "Are these unfamiliar patterns due to covid-19 or the reoccurring fear campaigns?", and "Have covid-19 measures been blindly adopted and applied, top-down, in haste, and short sightedly?" (Briand 2021, pages 53-54). Rancourt et al are more direct, stating “We conclude that the ‘covid-peak’ was palpably induced by the pandemic response.” (Page 47). And in a separate section that “We believe that it is not a coincidence that all the “covid peaks” started their sharp and sudden surges immediately (within 1 week or so) after the WHO’s March 2020 pronouncement of a pandemic. We believe viruses did not suddenly everywhere act on cue” (Rancourt et al 2021).