Tracking the true cost of the Coronavirus in human lives

The Economist magazine has updated their estimates of the number of excess deaths around the world since the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

It makes powerful and depressing reading.

Their data on European countries suggest that. quote, "compared with a historical baseline of 2009-19, Europe has suffered some deadly flu seasons since 2016—but that the death toll this year from covid-19 is far greater. Overall, the number of excess deaths across the continent since March is about 170,000. Though most of those victims have been older than 65, the number of deaths among Europeans aged 45-64 was 40% higher than usual in early April."

Key lessons from the data include

• Some countries have done better than others but almost everywhere has been badly hit.
• Countries which used strategies designed to fight an infection which behaves like SARS have generally done better in this particular pandemic than those which used a strategy designed to fight a disease which acts like flu. Of course, we don't want to be always fighting the previous war: there is no guarantee that the next pandemic will act like either.
• This is not just a disease which only kills the old and people who were going to die soon anyway. Look at the last sentence of the quote above about what the pandemic did during the first wave to the total number of deaths among Europeans aged from 45 to 64.

Here is the Economist's table for the fifteen countries with the highest rate of excess deaths among those nations which publish enough reliable data for this calculation to be done at all. There are huge swathes of the world, and countries such as Iran or China, where lack of trustworthy data makes it impossible even to attempt to calculate equivalent excess death statistics.

Excess deaths since country or city’s first 50 covid deaths

Last updated on October 23rd, 14:49 UTC

COUNTRY / REGION

TIME PERIOD

COVID-19 DEATHS

EXCESS DEATHS

EXCESS DEATHS
PER 100K PEOPLE

Peru

Apr 1st-Sep 30th

32,433

76,878

234

Ecuador

Mar 1st-Sep 30th

11,355

34,067

198

Mexico

Mar 29th-Aug 29th

63,803

158,384

151

Spain

Mar 4th-Oct 20th

34,051

56,394

121

Belgium

Mar 18th-Sep 29th

9,975

11,327

99

Britain

Mar 14th-Oct 9th

58,240

65,557

99

Italy

Feb 26th-Aug 25th

34,738

51,554

87

United States

Mar 8th-Oct 3rd

206,413

277,477

85

Portugal

Mar 25th-Oct 20th

2,180

7,024

68

Chile

Apr 8th-Oct 20th

13,658

11,892

68

Sweden

Mar 18th-Oct 6th

5,891

6,382

62

Netherlands

Mar 16th-Oct 18th

6,731

10,117

58

Russia

Apr 1st-Jul 31st

13,946

83,358

57

South Africa

Apr 15th-Oct 13th

18,001

32,960

56

Brazil

Mar 22nd-Aug 15th

107,214

104,333

50

In countries like Mexico or Russia where there is a huge gap between the official total for COVID-19 deaths and the number of excess deaths compared with what would have been expected since the pandemic hit, the most likely explanation for the discrepancy is that the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic is greatly underestimated by the official figures.

However, in countries where the two figures are much closer, such as Britain, it is likely that at least a significant fraction of the difference between the official COVID-19 death toll and the number of excess deaths is the net indirect effect of the Coronavirus. 

This would include people who have died of other conditions for which they would have been successfully been treated had the pandemic not disrupted their care or scared them away from seeking help, and it also includes the negative impacts on health of the measures taken against COVID-19 such as lockdowns - lack of exercise, depression, and suicide among others.

Sweden, one of the few countries which has never enforced a lockdown,  is often cited by both advocates and critics of lockdown as providing evidence which they think supports their case. The Economist's statisticians comments on Sweden are as follows:

 
"Sweden was one of the few countries that did not enforce a lockdown at all. It has endured a lower death rate than Britain or Spain, but a higher one than neighbouring Norway or Denmark, which enacted more stringent policies."   

I don't think that result fits too well with either the "Sweden didn't have a lockdown and they're doing marvellously so we shouldn't either" narrative or the "Sweden didn't have a lockdown and that decision  was catastrophic" narrative. I suggest what it demonstrates is the need for caution when comparing statistics from very different countries.

You can read the full article on the latest Economist tracker here.