Excess Mortality during the Covid-19 pandemic: Early evidence from England and Wales
Abstract Background The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed many lives in the UK and globally. The objective of this paper is to study whether the number of deaths not registered as covid-19-related has increased compared to what would have been expected in the absence of the pandemic. This may be a result of some covid-19 deaths being unreported or spillover effects on other causes of death (or both). Reasons behind this might include covid-19 underreporting, avoiding visits to hospitals or GPs, and the effects of the lockdown.Methods I used weekly ONS data on the number of deaths in England and Wales that did not officially involve covid-19 over the period 2015-2020. Simply observing trends is not sufficient as spikes in deaths may occasionally occur. I thus followed a differences-in-differences econometric approach to study whether there was a relative increase in deaths not registered as covid-19-related during the pandemic, compared to a control. As an additional approach, an interrupted time series model was also used.Results Results suggest that there are an additional 968 weekly deaths that officially did not involve covid-19, compared to what would have otherwise been expected. This increase is also confirmed by the interrupted time series analysis.Discussion The number of deaths not officially involving covid-19 has demonstrated an absolute and relative increase during the pandemic. It is possible that some people are dying from covid-19 without being diagnosed, and that there are excess deaths due to other causes as a result of the pandemic. Analysing the cause of death for any excess non-covid-19 deaths will shed light upon the reasons for the increase in such deaths and will help design appropriate policy responses to save lives..
Medienart: |
Preprint |
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Erscheinungsjahr: |
2021 |
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Erschienen: |
2021 |
Enthalten in: |
bioRxiv.org - (2021) vom: 24. März Zur Gesamtaufnahme - year:2021 |
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Sprache: |
Englisch |
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Beteiligte Personen: |
Vandoros, Sotiris [VerfasserIn] |
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Links: |
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doi: |
10.1101/2020.04.14.20065706 |
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funding: |
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PPN (Katalog-ID): |
XBI017598656 |
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520 | |a Abstract Background The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed many lives in the UK and globally. The objective of this paper is to study whether the number of deaths not registered as covid-19-related has increased compared to what would have been expected in the absence of the pandemic. This may be a result of some covid-19 deaths being unreported or spillover effects on other causes of death (or both). Reasons behind this might include covid-19 underreporting, avoiding visits to hospitals or GPs, and the effects of the lockdown.Methods I used weekly ONS data on the number of deaths in England and Wales that did not officially involve covid-19 over the period 2015-2020. Simply observing trends is not sufficient as spikes in deaths may occasionally occur. I thus followed a differences-in-differences econometric approach to study whether there was a relative increase in deaths not registered as covid-19-related during the pandemic, compared to a control. As an additional approach, an interrupted time series model was also used.Results Results suggest that there are an additional 968 weekly deaths that officially did not involve covid-19, compared to what would have otherwise been expected. This increase is also confirmed by the interrupted time series analysis.Discussion The number of deaths not officially involving covid-19 has demonstrated an absolute and relative increase during the pandemic. It is possible that some people are dying from covid-19 without being diagnosed, and that there are excess deaths due to other causes as a result of the pandemic. Analysing the cause of death for any excess non-covid-19 deaths will shed light upon the reasons for the increase in such deaths and will help design appropriate policy responses to save lives. | ||
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