Magnitude, demographics and dynamics of the effect of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on all-cause mortality in 21 industrialized countries | Abstract: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed many social, economic, environmental and healthcare determinants of health. We applied an ensemble of 16 Bayesian models to vital statistics data to estimate the all-cause mortality effect of the pandemic for 21 industrialized countries. From mid-February through May 2020, 206,000 (95% credible interval, 178,100–231,000) more people died in these countries than would have had the pandemic not occurred. The number of excess deaths, excess deaths per 100,000 people and relative increase in deaths were similar between men and women in most countries. England and Wales and Spain experienced the largest effect: ~100 excess deaths per 100,000 people, equivalent to a 37% (30–44%) relative increase in England and Wales and 38% (31–45%) in Spain. Bulgaria, New Zealand, Slovakia, Australia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Norway, Denmark and Finland experienced mortality changes that ranged from possible small declines to increases of 5% or less in either sex. The heterogeneous mortality effects of the COVID-19 pandemic reflect differences in how well countries have managed the pandemic and the resilience and preparedness of the health and social care system.
With our consistent and comparable analysis, we identified four groups of countries in terms of the overall death toll of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first group comprises countries that have avoided a detectable rise (with a posterior probability of at least 90%) in all-cause mortality and includes Bulgaria, New Zealand, Slovakia, Australia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The second and third groups of countries experienced a low-to-medium effect of the pandemic on overall deaths and include Austria, Switzerland and Portugal (low effect) and France, the Netherlands and Sweden (medium effect). The fourth group of countries, which experienced the highest mortality toll, consists of Belgium, Italy, Scotland, Spain and England and Wales.
Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries: In many parts of the world, official death tolls undercount the total number of fatalities
