Would the majority of COVID-19 victims have died this year anyway, as some have suggested? Matthew Edwards and Stuart McDonald investigate.
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Would the majority of COVID-19 victims have died this year anyway, as some have suggested? Matthew Edwards and Stuart McDonald investigate.
Actuary & Director - Willis Towers Watson
Matthew Edwards is an actuary working at Willis Towers Watson, where he leads the life insurance practice’s demographic risk work, focusing on mortality, longevity and associated analytics.
He has a particular interest in the interface between actuarial work and medical science.
Before his (circa) twenty years at Willis Towers Watson (via legacy Watsons and Towers Watson), he worked for Aviva, including several years in Italy, and for the Actuarial Education Company tutoring life and mortality courses.
He is Chair of the CMI, Editor of the IFoA’s Longevity Bulletin and chaired the profession’s Antibiotic Resistance Working Party.
Stuart is Head of Longevity and Demographic Insights at the consultancy Lane Clark & Peacock (LCP). He works across the Actuarial and Health Analytics teams, helping clients understand and manage the long-term
health and economic implications of the pandemic.
Prior to joining LCP he was responsible for demographic assumptions at Scottish Widows and previously led Munich Re’s longevity pricing team.
Stuart plays an active role within the actuarial profession, and is Deputy Chair elect of the Continuous Mortality Investigation. Early in 2020 he founded and co-chairs the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group.
Stuart was awarded an MBE for services to Public Health in the 2022 New Year Honours.
Stuart made a guest appearance on the Independent SAGE weekly briefing to give a presentation on excess deaths. The discussion covered what we mean by excess deaths and different ways of measuring these, whether by...
In a live interview on BBC World News on 29 December John discussed the very high numbers of cases in England. He focussed on London in particular, where the Omicron wave is most advanced. A smaller proportion of cases...
Hospital Admissions I discussed COVID-19 case numbers and hospital admissions in the UK in this live interview on BBC News on 22 December. The interview took place just minutes after the data was released. The new data...
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