They wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of the response to the health crisis triggered by the pandemic COVID-19 and they noted that, despite the containment measures, despite the arrival and availability of anti-Covid vaccines, excess mortality has remained high for 3 consecutive years in the West since the start of the pandemic. For the team of researchers who conducted the analysis, based on data from 47 countries, this persistence of excess mortality rates at high levels for so long gives rise to “serious reasons for concern”. The work is published in the journal ‘Bmj Public Health’ and the authors, experts from the Emma Children’s Hospital – Amsterdam Umc, Vrije Universiteit and the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology in Utrecht, invite governments and policy makers to thoroughly investigate the causes below.
The analysis
The analysis focused on the excess mortality between January 2020 and December 2022, therefore on the number of people who died from any cause in excess of the mortality that would normally be expected in that specific period. The 47 countries surveyed are in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. The researchers applied a statistical method called the Karlinsky and Kobak estimation model, which uses historical death data in a particular country from 2015 to 2019 and takes into account seasonal variations and annual trends in deaths due to changes in population structure .
The total number of excess deaths in the countries included in the analysis was 3,098,456. Excess deaths were reported by 41 countries (87%) in 2020, 42 (89%) in 2021 and 43 (91%) in 2022. In 2020, the year the Covid-19 pandemic began and containment measures such as lockdown, social distancing, school closures and quarantines were implemented, 1,033,122 excess deaths were recorded (11.5% more than expected). In 2021, the year in which both anti-Covid measures and vaccines were used to slow the spread of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, a total of 1,256,942 excess deaths were reported (just under 14% more than expected). And in 2022, the year in which most containment measures were lifted but Covid vaccination continued, preliminary data indicates that 808,392 excess deaths were recorded.
Greenland was the only country among the 47 that did not report excess deaths between 2020 and 2022. Among others, the percentage difference between the number of documented and expected deaths was higher in 28% of countries in 2020, 46% in 2021, and 26% in 2022. It is unclear how many of these excess deaths reflect the impact of Covid infection or the indirect effects of containment measures and so on, the researchers say.
“While the indirect effects of containment measures are likely to have changed the extent and nature of disease for numerous causes of death following the pandemic, the effects caused by limited health care use and socioeconomic upheaval are difficult to demonstrate“, the scientists add, recognize various limitations to their findings, including the incompleteness of some data, particularly for 2022, due to the fact that in some countries it takes longer for deaths to be registered. The way these data are compiled, then, differs from country to country, the researchers say, also highlighting the absence of detailed stratification of key characteristics, such as age or gender.
However, the authors conclude, “excess mortality has remained high in the Western world for 3 consecutive yearsdespite the implementation of containment measures and anti-Covid vaccines. This is an unprecedented situation and raises serious concerns. Government leaders and policy makers must thoroughly investigate the underlying causes of persistent excess mortality and evaluate their policies regarding the health crisis.”
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