First of all, you can find the new ‘study™’ here: ‘Aberrations in medically certified sick leave and primary healthcare consultations in Norway in 2023 compared to pre-COVID-19-pandemic trends’, Archives of Public Healthvolume 82, Article number: 187 (2024), and its lead-author is no unknown capacity: Richard Aubrey White of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
Yes, the statistician who was featured repeatedly in legacy media:
So, what’s the new ‘study™’ about? Excess sick leave, and here are its key findings:
Since 2022, Norway has employed a vaccine-only COVID-19 strategy. Primary healthcare in Norway uses International Classification of Primary Care version 2 (ICPC-2) codes. This study aims to systematically compare medically certified sick leave and primary healthcare consultations in 2023 with the pre-pandemic 2010–2019 trends, and subsequently estimate the magnitude of these changes.
You know, it’s never a good thing to kick off whatever is said with a half-truth/half-lie thing. You see, it’s not technically false that Norway employed a ‘vaccine-only COVID-19 strategy’—from Feb. 2022 onwards, mandates were lifted because because ‘they don’t work’ (my words)
Which also means that’s it’s highly disingenuous to compare ‘the Pandemic™’ era as a whole with data from before, because the distinction should—nay: must—be made before/after Feb. 2022 due to the mandates.
Methods
For the respective outcomes of (A) working person-years lost to medically certified sick leave (WYLSL) and (B) number of primary healthcare consultations, 556 and 85 ICPC-2 code combinations were extracted from the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration’s sick leave registry and the Norwegian Syndromic Surveillance System. For each ICPC-2 code combination, a Bayesian linear regression was performed using data between 2010 and 2019 to estimate an expected baseline for 2023, which was then used to calculate the deviation from the pre-pandemic trend. A false discovery rate of 5% was used to account for multiple testing.
See what I mean? This isn’t so much data splice (i.e., combining different data) as it is a pre-Covid baseline that is used to analyse all the ‘Pandemic™’ years without differentiating between mandates/no-mandates is, well, let’s call it a thing that one should have mentioned, let alone influenced the study design?
Results
All years from 2020 to 2023 had excess WYLSL, corresponding to 14,491 (90% PI: 8,935 to 20,016) in 2020, 12,911 (90% PI: 5,916 to 19,996) in 2021, 21,263 (90% PI: 12,627 to 29,864) in 2022, and 24,466 (90% PI: 14,023 to 34,705) in 2023. This corresponded to an economic loss of approximately 1.5 billion USD in 2023. Excess WYLSL due to A* (General and unspecified) increased from 2020 to 2023, with an estimated excess of 4,136 WYLSL in 2023 (69% higher than expected). More than half of this increase was explained by A04 (Weakness/tiredness general), whose excess WYLSL in 2023 were estimated at 2,640 (80% higher than expected). The excess in A04 (Weakness/tiredness general) corresponded to an economic loss of 161 million USD and accounted for 11% of the total excess WYLSL in 2023. The excess WYLSL in R* (Respiratory) in 2023 was 3,408, which correspond to an economic loss of 207 million USD and accounted for 14% of the total excess in 2023.
Note that the authors discounted the mandates completely (2020-22), and hence the study is…problematic.
Conclusions
Significant excesses in working person-years lost to medically certified sick leave and primary healthcare consultations in 2023. A sizable proportion of the excesses were due to diseases/symptoms associated with acute and post-acute sequelae of COVID-19.
While the paper looks and esp. ‘feels’ well done, the devil is, as always, in the details. They do correlate data from GPs and unemployment/welfare insurance system, and they look at outcomes (their economic calculations are based off the median income, i.e., across the board, which means it’s a simply multiplication that doesn’t account for part-time work), but here’s the problem as I see it:
The aim of this analysis was to use the data from 2010 to 2019 to predict expected baselines for 2020–2023, then calculate the excess values for 2020–2023 by subtracting the observed values from the expected baselines.
To calculate the expected/excess values for 2020 to 2023, one analysis was performed for each combination of: male/female/all sexes, and each ICPC-2 code combination…
The expected baselines for 2020–2023 were then used to calculate the excess values and corresponding prediction intervals.
The excess values were then restricted to 2022 and 2023 and corrected for multiple testing using false discovery rates (FDR) with a threshold of 0.05. After FDR correction, significant results with an absolute excess value less than 10,000 were discarded due to not being clinically relevant.
So, why exclude 2020 and 2021?
Well, here’s the triumph of Nordic Public Health™ systems:
There is no consistent data on community spread of COVID-19 in Norway for the entire period of 2020 to 2023. Since the implementation of the “vaccine-only strategy” in 2022, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing and subsequent registering of results became an even more unreliable indicator, and wastewater ribonucleic acid (RNA) concentration measurements for SARS-CoV-2 were only performed between mid-2022 and the end of 2023.
Basically, what the authors are doing is the functional equivalent of Theodicy, i.e., they try to prove a point with real-world data on sequelae but they don’t have ‘consistent data on…Covid…2020 to 2023’.
The questionable assertion of ‘vaxx-only’ is repeated (perhaps it becomes ‘true™’ at some point) but in the end, the ‘study™’ is an exercise in futility: there is nothing to compare the statistical results to. Yes, some data exists, but it’s neither comprehensive nor consistent, if it exists at-all—i.e., even if they wished to empirically prove anything (which is speculation), they can’t because of this lack of real-world evidence.
Put simply: the ‘study™’ may only be reproduced by re-running the model, but it cannot be empirically proven. It is pure make-believe.
How Does Legacy Media Report on it?
Of course, none of these—shall we call them ‘technicalities’?—matter to the equally make-believe world commonly referred to as legacy media™.
Known pencil-pusher Jan-Erik Wilthil of the Norwegian state broadcaster NRK also read the ‘study™’—and here’s what he took away:
Norwegian Study: Disturbing Findings About Covid-19
‘Long covid’ may be an important reason for the record-high sick leave, according to Norwegian researchers. During waves of infection, people flock to their GP with symptoms of fatigue.
‘Covid-19 is an important reason for the increase in sick leave. Those who discuss increased sick leave without mentioning COVID-19 and its sequelae are not conducting a serious discussion’, says IPH researcher Richard Aubrey White.
Together with researchers from NAV [the Norwegian welfare agency], the University of Oslo, and NTNU, he has investigated how the coronavirus affects sick leave in Norway.
The conclusion of the study is remarkable…
The researchers point out that sick leave due to fatigue has exploded during the pandemic years. The same applies to mental health problems and ADHD-like symptoms, such as memory and concentration difficulties.
According to the study, fatigue alone accounts for 11% of the increase in sick leave in 2023, which corresponds to a financial loss of NOK 1.8 billion.
While I have shown you the ‘study™’ above—which is a model—Mr. Wilthil considers it empirical evidence. Now, I don’t know if he’s plain stupid, but what the news™ item clearly shows is that Mr. Wilthil fails to inform his readers neither about the fact that the ‘study™’ is a statistical model nor that there is no real-world empirical evidence to test the model against. So, in the best case, Mr. Wilthil’s musings are either due to incompetence or, rather more darkly, due to ulterior motives. Whatever the reason, the result—massive gaslighting—is the same.
‘All of this can be linked to the late effects of COVID-19’, says White [not a MD], who led the study. He emphasises that COVID-19 can also affect the brain, causing a wide range of symptoms [how is this not quackery?].
‘There is strong evidence of neurological and psychological sequelae after COVID-19. These sequelae, such as persistent memory problems and cognitive difficulties, can lead to a patient seeing their GP for suspected ADHD’, says White.
In 2023, sickness absence with ADHD as a diagnosis is 91% higher than expected, according to the study.
And since the possibility of the modRNA poison/death juices is excluded from the get-go, the elephant remains in the room but it’s ignored.
We do get fancy images, such as the one below which shows sick leave due to fatigue:
Note that the year of the ‘pandemic™’ before the modRNA poison/death juice became available (2020) was quite unremarkable. The subsequent increase by (eyeballing here) over the pre-’pandemic™’ baseline (2015-19) appears to be close to 100% in 2023.
No-one talks about this, though, and instead, we get hilariously awesome ‘science™’-informed assessments, such as the following one by Mr. Wilthil:
The researchers used information from the IPH’s own system for monitoring the disease situation in Norway.
This system collects data on diagnoses from almost all GPs and ERs in Norway. In addition, they collected information on sickness absence from NAV. They then compared the trends in the period before and after the pandemic [which means they conflated mandates (2020-22) and before/after modRNA poison/death juice rollout (from 27 Dec. 2020 onwards), i.e., they are comparing apples, oranges, skunks, and clams].
They also found a temporal correlation with waves of infection. The study shows that during periods with a high level of corona infection, far more people go on sick leave with symptoms of exhaustion [we desperately need way more science™ to know].
White believes that developments in recent years paint a clear picture. He asks the authorities to inform the population about the risk of late effects, and what it really means.
The researcher emphasises that he is not speaking on behalf of the IPH.
Note that Covid infections (for which there is no data, as per the study™) are shown in red; the blue line shows GP consultations with diagnoses of fatigue; the green shows the incidence (sic, lol) of sick leave for fatigue.
The above-related conclusion is, evidently so, bullet-proof.
To wrap this up, here’s the take-away of Mr. White:
It’s easy to blame the individual. Recognising that COVID-19 plays an important role in increasing sickness absence will require governments to take action’, says White.
As you can see, the one conclusion drawn is more gov’t action.
Bottom Lines
It’s hard to read these lines and not throw up one’s hands in despair over all these moronic non-sequiturs that, seemingly, all require ‘more gov’t action’.
There is no discussion of the modRNA poison/death juice, nor of the mandates.
Both measures were, of course, necessary™, saved countless lives™, and this has been established by the Science™.
While it is, of course, a wee bit bad in terms of optics, we note the absence of empirical, real-world data, as is admitted by Mr. White et al. in their study.
Hence, there cannot be any question about the data (hahahahaha) underlying that red line showing ‘Covid infections’.
Finally, mention shall be made that these notions aren’t lost on—believe it or not—IPH Director Preben Aavitsland, who is cited by Mr. Wilthil as follows:
Acting Area Director Preben Aavitsland at the IPH, however, believes that ‘long COVID’ is not a widespread health problem in Norway.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has investigated the incidence of sequelae and found that only a small proportion of those who have had COVID-19 experience health problems afterwards.
‘We found that less than one per cent of those infected had long-term symptoms. The proportion is probably even lower now that immunity is so widespread in the population’, says Aavitsland.
He believes that the study cannot conclude that COVID-19 is the cause of sick leave.
So, what about that?
What Mr. Aavitsland fails to do, however, is to address the literally only other option left: we know that the modRNA poison/death juice’s adverse events mirror those of Covid-19…
…and you, my dear readers, may very well deduce, scientifically, where the root cause of the exploding sick leave may originate.
I, for one, shall not hold my breath until ‘they™’ also ‘learn™’.
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I, for one, shall not hold my breath until ‘they™’ also ‘learn™’.
"They" have to want to learn....
The Science at work! How about comparing WYLSL for the jabbed set vs. the unjabbed group? I bet you that would be deemed "unscientific". ;-)
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair