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Excess Mortality

Excess mortality provides an estimate of the additional number of deaths within a geographical region (e.g. country) over a localized time period (e.g. one year), compared to the number of deaths expected (often estimated using the same time period in the preceding year or averaged over several preceding years). In encompassing deaths from all causes, excess mortality overcomes the variation between countries in reporting and testing of COVID-19 and the misclassification of the cause of death on death certificates. Under the assumption that the incidence of other diseases remains steady over time, then excess deaths can be viewed as those caused both directly and indirectly by COVID-19, COVID-19 pharmaceutical interventions and/or COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions, giving a summary measure of the ‘whole system’ impact.1).

Excess Mortality During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

Debates over mortality caused by diseases and treatments (including public health responses) during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic have statisticians and data geeks looking at excess mortality statistics to get a better sense of what has taken place.

Excess Mortality in England & Wales During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine2) in Oxford produced a Florence Nightingale diagram3) on December 3, 2021.

Excess Mortality in Scotland During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

Excess mortality is accelerating in Scotland, in a temporally staged manner, by age group. S K, [05.11.21 05:08] [In reply to Leonardo] Now THAT is fascinating!

Leonardo, [05.11.21 05:18] I'd say the trends start rising when the vaccination campaign started for each age group, but I'd be Jumping To Conclusions ™

Monica Hughes, [05.11.21 05:27] “trends start rising when the vaccination campaign started for each age group” Not quite. But there's some delay, maybe a 4-6 month delay?

Leonardo, [05.11.21 05:35] Would be helpful to check against the vaccination campaign dates in Scotland

Leonardo, [05.11.21 05:37] https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations?areaType=nation%26areaName=Scotland#card-vaccination_uptake_by_vaccination_date_age_demographics

Leonardo, [05.11.21 05:37] Or even better, the uptake maps

S K, [05.11.21 05:40] [In reply to Leonardo] I’ve jumped. Come to the concluded side.

Leonardo, [05.11.21 05:42] [In reply to Monica Hughes] Eyeballing the data, you seem absolutely right; it's 6 months apart

Excess Mortality in the USA During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

Insurance executive Scott Davison of OneAmerica created a sensation when he stated publicly that mortality was increased by 40% in adults aged18-64; these data are from comps that have group life insurance with his firm: https://www.thecentersquare.com/indiana/indiana-life-insurance-ceo-says-deaths-are-up-40-among-people-ages-18-64/article_71473b12-6b1e-11ec-8641-5b2c06725e2c.html

It should be noted that the causes of deaths for these people are unknown at this time.

Excess Mortality Globally During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

This Our World in Data page includes a model from The Economist that tries to estimate how much higher the Covid death toll might be, given the apparently high numbers of unreported deaths globally. The gap between actual and estimated is…massive. It's also striking that there's little context in here in terms of previous years.

On December 22, 2021, Michael Levitt tweeted the following;

“In England & Wales (ENW, most of UK), there have been zero excess deaths in the 44 weeks since 1-Feb-2021. In that same period to 22-Nov-2021, there were 1.47 million cases COVID-19.”

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