A researcher in Minnesota discovered shocking increases in death rates in the state, with year-over-year averages proving to be “astoundingly” high for younger age groups.
Researcher Marana Muse joined Liz Collin on her podcast once again to discuss her findings on death data, vaccines and COVID-19 testing in Minnesota.
What’s really killing Minnesotans?
An insurance company out of Indianapolis reported earlier this year that deaths among working-age people were up 40% compared to pre-COVID-19 levels. Muse found that Minnesota has a similar problem.
She looked into all death data across the state, for the age groups 5-17 and 19-55, comparing data from a five-year average to both 2020 and 2021.
The five-year average, from 2015-2019, for deaths of 5-17-year-olds was 138 deaths. In 2020, this rate went up by 3%. In 2021, the rate went up 24%, which was an increase of 38 deaths. Only four of those deaths were COVID-related, Muse said.
In 2021, accidents, suicides, and homicides made up 28% of the increase.
Looking strictly at deaths related to drugs and alcohol in that age range, in 2020 they were up 128%, and in 2021 it was 248%, Muse said, calling these numbers “truly shocking.”
In the age category of 19-55, 2020 saw an increase of 25% over the average. Raw numbers show 710 more deaths than the average, with only 124 of those being COVID-related.
In 2021, “even more shocking,” Muse said, there was a 47% increase in deaths, with only 25.8% of those being COVID-related. Drugs and alcohol-related deaths in 2021 were up 82%.
“They were probably eating, drinking, maybe partaking in substances that they wouldn’t have considered before, probably not living a healthy lifestyle and increasing their risk based on decisions they made outside of COVID,” Muse said.
‘Stop accepting the talking points’
Referring to a recent headline that stated COVID infections were up six times nationally compared to last year, Muse found that Minnesota’s current infection rate is up 2.7 times.
But now, with far less infectious and fatal strains of the virus, Muse decided to look into hospitalization and death numbers for the state, and she found that both are significantly lower.
“I found that the ICU rate was down by 42%, year over year, even though the infections were up 2.7 times, and I found for deaths, year over year, they were down 38%,” she said.
The goal is to keep hospitalizations and deaths down, so there is no point for the media to hype up infection rates, Muse pointed out.
“Why don’t we focus on the health of people here in Minnesota, the health of people here in the U.S., and my hope is that people stop accepting information, the talking points that people hear, and making decisions based on those talking points,” she said.
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Rose Williams
Rose Williams is an assistant editor for Alpha News.
