Tag: excess mortality

Worldwide COVID-19 death toll tops a staggering 3 million

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-brazil-caracas-portugal-india-ccad03475cfd5c846f11189a8bfd99c7?mc_cid=6daa5b724a&mc_eid=983bcf5922

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The global death toll from the coronavirus topped a staggering 3 million people Saturday amid repeated setbacks in the worldwide vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in places such as Brazil, India and France.

The number of lives lost, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Kyiv, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; or metropolitan Lisbon, Portugal. It is bigger than Chicago (2.7 million) and equivalent to Philadelphia and Dallas combined.

And the true number is believed to be significantly higher because of possible government concealment and the many cases overlooked in the early stages of the outbreak that began in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019.

Author(s): DAVID BILLER, MARIA CHENG, JOSHUA GOODMAN

Publication Date: 17 April 2021

Publication Site: Associated Press

Deaths in Vehicle Crashes Up 38% in South Dakota in 2020

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2021/04/16/610222.htm

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The number of traffic crash fatalities in South Dakota rose to 141 last year — an increase of 38% over the previous year.

The South Dakota Department of Public Safety said in 2020, there were 132 crashes in which the fatalities occurred.

In 2019, 102 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes, the lowest in state history since records have been kept beginning in 1947. The number of fatal crashes in 2019 was 88, also a record low.

Publication Date: 16 April 2021

Publication Site: Insurance Journal

Milliman analysis: Public pensions’ funded ratio hits new high at 79.0% in Q1 2021

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/milliman-analysis-public-pensions-funded-ratio-hits-new-high-at-79-0-in-q1-2021–301271688.html

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In 2021, public pensions have continued their strong recovery from a year prior, with the funded status of the Milliman 100 plans increasing to 79.0% as of March 31, up from 78.6% at the end of December 2020 and 66.0% in Q1 2020. The Q1 2021 funded ratio is the highest recorded in the history of Milliman’s Public Pension Funding Study.

“While 2021 has proven to be a strong year for public pensions so far, there are still lingering questions around the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these plans,” said Becky Sielman, author of Milliman’s Public Pension Funding Study. “The past year has seen workforce volatility and strain on state budgets which could put downward pressure on funding in the future.”

Author(s): Milliman

Publication Date: 19 April 2021

Publication Site: PRNewswire

Continuing COVID hangover would see pension liabilities drop

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.actuarialpost.co.uk/article/continuing-covid-hangover-would-see-pension-liabilities-drop-19483.htm

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Only in the event of a tragic Covid-19 scenario, seeing continued substantial additional deaths for many years would there be a significant reduction in UK DB scheme liabilities, according to a new report from LCP.


While LCP believes that the financial impact on DB schemes of direct deaths from the first two Covid-19 waves is likely to be marginal, it outlines several other scenarios around the pandemic’s longer-term impact on mortality rates and scheme labilities. The range of outcomes illustrates the challenges of choosing an appropriate mortality assumption at the current time, with much uncertainty over how Covid-19 will play out.

Author(s): Chris Tavener

Date Accessed: 20 April 2021

Publication Site: Actuarial Post (UK)

How ‘excess deaths’ show COVID’s real impact, and point to better ways of combating pandemics

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://nationalpost.com/health/how-excess-deaths-show-covids-real-impact-and-point-to-better-ways-of-combating-pandemics

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Canada saw about 42 excess deaths per 100,000 people by the fall of 2020, according to calculations from Ode’s team at Oxford.

In comparison, there were 132 per 100,000 in the U.S. during 2020, 100 in England and Wales, 33 in Germany and 175 excess deaths per 100,000 in Poland.

Perhaps most interesting were the minority of countries that have managed to keep the coronavirus at bay with a variety of public health measures.

Australia saw a three per cent decrease in excess deaths in 2020, New Zealand a six per cent reduction, while deaths in Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore were flat or lower, according to Karlinsky’s list. His source data were slightly different than those used in the Oxford study, but all the excess-death monitoring projects, including ones run by the Economist magazine and Financial Times newspaper, generally line up.

Author(s): Tom Blackwell

Publication Date: 9 April 2021

Publication Site: National Post

Life expectancy decreased in 2020 across the EU

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/edn-20210407-1

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Life expectancy at birth has been increasing over the past decade in the EU: official statistics reveal that life expectancy has risen, on average, by more than two years per decade since the 1960s. However, the latest available data suggest that life expectancy stagnated or even declined in recent years in several EU Member States.

Moreover, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, life expectancy at birth fell in the vast majority of the EU Member States with available 2020 data. The largest decreases were recorded in Spain (-1.6 years compared with 2019) and Bulgaria (-1.5), followed by Lithuania, Poland and Romania (all -1.4).

Publication Date: 7 April 2021

Publication Site: EuroStat

COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Excess Mortality and Potential Years of Life Lost in the U.S. and Peer Countries

Mary Pat Campbell
COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Excess Mortality and Potential Years of Life Lost in the U.S. and Peer Countries

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We find that, among similarly large and wealthy countries, the U.S. had among the highest excess mortality rates in 2020, and younger people were more likely to have died due to the pandemic in the U.S. than younger people in other countries. With a much higher rate of death among people under age 75, the U.S. had the highest increase in premature deaths due the pandemic in 2020. Before the pandemic, the U.S. already had the highest premature death rate of peer nations, by far. We find that per capita premature excess death rate in the U.S. was over twice as high as the next closest peer country, the U.K. The higher rate of new premature deaths in the U.S. compared to peer countries was driven in part by racial disparities within the U.S. Looking at age differences in excess mortality by race, we find that American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN), Hispanic, Black, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI) people in the U.S. were more likely to have died at younger ages during the pandemic in 2020 than non-elderly White or Asian adults in the U.S.

Author(s): Krutika Amin, Cynthia Cox

Publication Date: 7 April 2021

Publication Site: Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker

Study: U.S. had 23% more deaths than expected in 2020 due to pandemic

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2021/04/02/coronavirus-excess-deaths-study/7781617369688/

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The United States saw 23% more deaths than expected between March 1, 2020, and the start of this year, due primarily to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which suggests the official number of U.S. coronavirus deaths is an undercount, according to an analysis published Friday by JAMA found.

More than 2.8 million people died nationally between when the first confirmed cases of the coronavirus were identified and Jan. 2, the data showed.

That’s roughly 522,000 more than would be expected for the 10-month period, based on figures from 2014 through 2019.

These excess deaths were higher than the number of publicly reported COVID-19 deaths across the country, researchers said.

Author(s): Brian P. Dunleavy

Publication Date: 2 April 2021

Publication Site: UPI

TRUST THE SCIENCE: THE BLUE STATE SURGE IS REAL

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: http://www.newgeography.com/content/007004-trust-science-the-blue-state-surge-real

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What did make a big difference, it turns out, is not so much the severity of lockdowns but pre-existing conditions. The likely cause here can be best identified as “exposure density” brought on by crowded housing, transit, and office environments.

That helps explain why, after New York City’s suburbs were hit hard in the first wave, the current surge has hit the outer boroughs, where a much higher share of workers have had little choice but to continue taking the subway or other transit.

Nationwide, urban exposure to the pandemic also reflects their greater inequality. Higher rates of poverty and overcrowded housing accentuate the worst effects of the pandemic, which tore through impoverished parts of New York, Houston, Los Angeles County, Chicago’s poor south side, and similar areas. The Bronx, for example, has suffered an 80 percent worse death rate than denser yet wealthier Manhattan, while Brooklyn’s rate is 50 percent worse than Manhattan’s.

Author(s): Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox

Publication Date: 6 April 2021

Publication Site: New Geography

Excess Deaths From COVID-19 and Other Causes in the US, March 1, 2020, to January 2, 2021

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778361

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Between March 1, 2020, and January 2, 2021, the US experienced 2 801 439 deaths, 22.9% more than expected, representing 522 368 excess deaths (Table). The excess death rate was higher among non-Hispanic Black (208.4 deaths per 100 000) than non-Hispanic White or Hispanic populations (157.0 and 139.8 deaths per 100 000, respectively); these groups accounted for 16.9%, 61.1%, and 16.7% of excess deaths, respectively. The US experienced 4 surge patterns: in New England and the Northeast, excess deaths surged in the spring; in the Southeast and Southwest, in the summer and early winter; in the Plains, Rocky Mountain, and far West, primarily in early winter; and in the Great Lakes, bimodally, in the spring and early winter (Figure). Excess deaths were increasing in all regions at the end of 2020. The 10 states with the highest per capita rate of excess deaths were Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Arizona, Alabama, Louisiana, South Dakota, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Ohio. New York experienced the largest relative increase in all-cause mortality (38.1%). Deaths attributed to COVID-19 accounted for 72.4% of US excess deaths.

Joinpoint analyses revealed an increase in weekly mortality from non–COVID-19 causes, including heart disease from March 15 to April 11, 2020 (APC, 4.9 [95% CI, 0.7-9.3]), and October 11, 2020, to January 2, 2021 (APC, 1.1 [95% CI, 0.8-1.4]); Alzheimer disease/dementia from March 15 to April 11, 2020 (APC, 7.1 [95% CI, 2.4-12.0]), May 31 to August 15, 2020 (APC, 1.2 [95% CI, 0.7-1.6]), and September 6, 2020, to January 2, 2021 (APC, 1.3 [95% CI, 1.1-1.5]); and diabetes from March 8 to April 11, 2020 (APC, 6.5 [95% CI, 2.8-10.3]), May 31 to July 11, 2020 (APC, 2.6 [95% CI, 0.2-5.0]), and October 18, 2020, to January 2, 2021 (APC, 2.2 [95% CI, 1.6-2.8]).

Author(s): Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH1; Derek A. Chapman, PhD1; Roy T. Sabo, PhD2; et al

Publication Date: 2 April 2021

Publication Site: JAMA

Provisional Mortality Data — United States, 2020

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm

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During January–December 2020, the estimated 2020 age-adjusted death rate increased for the first time since 2017, with an increase of 15.9% compared with 2019, from 715.2 to 828.7 deaths per 100,000 population. COVID-19 was the underlying or a contributing cause of 377,883 deaths (91.5 deaths per 100,000). COVID-19 death rates were highest among males, older adults, and AI/AN and Hispanic persons. The highest numbers of overall deaths and COVID-19 deaths occurred during April and December. COVID-19 was the third leading underlying cause of death in 2020, replacing suicide as one of the top 10 leading causes of death (6).

The findings in this report are subject to at least four limitations. First, data are provisional, and numbers and rates might change as additional information is received. Second, timeliness of death certificate submission can vary by jurisdiction. As a result, the national distribution of deaths might be affected by the distribution of deaths from jurisdictions reporting later, which might differ from those in the United States overall. Third, certain categories of race (i.e., AI/AN and Asian) and Hispanic ethnicity reported on death certificates might have been misclassified (7), possibly resulting in underestimates of death rates for some groups. Finally, the cause of death for certain persons might have been misclassified. Limited availability of testing for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic might have resulted in an underestimation of COVID-19–associated deaths.

This report provides an overview of provisional U.S. mortality data for 2020. Provisional death estimates can give researchers and policymakers an early indication of shifts in mortality trends and provide actionable information sooner than the final mortality data that are released approximately 11 months after the end of the data year. These data can guide public health policies and interventions aimed at reducing numbers of deaths that are directly or indirectly associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and among persons most affected, including those who are older, male, or from disproportionately affected racial/ethnic minority groups.

Author(s): Farida B. Ahmad, Jodi A. Cisewski, Arialdi Miniño, Robert N. Anderson

Publication Date: 31 March 2021

Publication Site: CDC