Excess mortality analysis for Germany for all three COVID-19 waves in 2020 - 2021
Abstract Background and Aims The excess mortality has been used as a metric to estimate the impact of COVID-19 across countries. For Germany, we observe that during the second half of the first and second COVID-19 waves, the COVID-19 deaths are significantly higher than the excess mortality. We attribute the difference to the pre-dying effect. We then compare the excess mortality to the official COVID-19 death numbers and calculate the infection fatality rates (IFRs) and the percentage of infected individuals from excess mortality for different age bands. We also compare the impact of COVID-19 to past influenza waves and analyze the vaccination effect on excess mortality.Methods We forecast the baseline mortality from official data on deaths in Germany. Distributing a part of excess mortality into the near future, we lower the baseline simulating the pre-dying effect. From the observed mortality deficit, we estimate the percentage of infected individuals and then estimate the age-dependent IFRs.Results In the first wave, we find an overall excess mortality of ca. 8 000. For the second wave, the overall excess mortality adds up to ca. 56 000. We find, that the pre-dying effect explains the difference between the official COVID-19 deaths and excess mortality in the second half of the waves to a high degree. Attributing the whole excess mortality to COVID-19, we find that the IFRs are significantly higher in the second wave. In the third wave, the overall excess mortality is ca. 5 000. We find an excess mortality in mid-age bands which cannot be explained by the official COVID-19 deaths. For the senior band 80+, we find results in favor of a strong and positive vaccination effect for the third COVID-19 wave.Conclusions We conclude that in the first and second COVID-19 waves, the COVID-19 deaths explain almost all excess mortality when the pre-dying effect is taken into account. In the third wave in 2021, the excess mortality is not very pronounced for the 80+ age band, probably due to vaccination. The partially unvaccinated 40-80 age group experiences a pronounced excess mortality in the third wave while there are too few official COVID-19 deaths to explain the excess. The no-vaccination scenario for the 80+ age band results in a similarly high excess mortality as for the more younger age bands, suggesting a very positive vaccination effect on reduction of COVID-19 deaths..
Medienart: |
Preprint |
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Erscheinungsjahr: |
2021 |
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Erschienen: |
2021 |
Enthalten in: |
bioRxiv.org - (2021) vom: 01. Dez. Zur Gesamtaufnahme - year:2021 |
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Sprache: |
Englisch |
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Beteiligte Personen: |
Weber, Alexej [VerfasserIn] |
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Links: |
Volltext [kostenfrei] |
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doi: |
10.1101/2021.07.06.21260105 |
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funding: |
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Förderinstitution / Projekttitel: |
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PPN (Katalog-ID): |
XBI032164793 |
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520 | |a Abstract Background and Aims The excess mortality has been used as a metric to estimate the impact of COVID-19 across countries. For Germany, we observe that during the second half of the first and second COVID-19 waves, the COVID-19 deaths are significantly higher than the excess mortality. We attribute the difference to the pre-dying effect. We then compare the excess mortality to the official COVID-19 death numbers and calculate the infection fatality rates (IFRs) and the percentage of infected individuals from excess mortality for different age bands. We also compare the impact of COVID-19 to past influenza waves and analyze the vaccination effect on excess mortality.Methods We forecast the baseline mortality from official data on deaths in Germany. Distributing a part of excess mortality into the near future, we lower the baseline simulating the pre-dying effect. From the observed mortality deficit, we estimate the percentage of infected individuals and then estimate the age-dependent IFRs.Results In the first wave, we find an overall excess mortality of ca. 8 000. For the second wave, the overall excess mortality adds up to ca. 56 000. We find, that the pre-dying effect explains the difference between the official COVID-19 deaths and excess mortality in the second half of the waves to a high degree. Attributing the whole excess mortality to COVID-19, we find that the IFRs are significantly higher in the second wave. In the third wave, the overall excess mortality is ca. 5 000. We find an excess mortality in mid-age bands which cannot be explained by the official COVID-19 deaths. For the senior band 80+, we find results in favor of a strong and positive vaccination effect for the third COVID-19 wave.Conclusions We conclude that in the first and second COVID-19 waves, the COVID-19 deaths explain almost all excess mortality when the pre-dying effect is taken into account. In the third wave in 2021, the excess mortality is not very pronounced for the 80+ age band, probably due to vaccination. The partially unvaccinated 40-80 age group experiences a pronounced excess mortality in the third wave while there are too few official COVID-19 deaths to explain the excess. The no-vaccination scenario for the 80+ age band results in a similarly high excess mortality as for the more younger age bands, suggesting a very positive vaccination effect on reduction of COVID-19 deaths. | ||
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