Estimating Excess Mortality Associated with COVID-19 Pandemic. A 151 Cross-countries Study.

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to estimate the excess of mortality associated with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2,COVID-19) pandemic. For this analysis, we merged population data and deaths number provided by the World Bank database and the projections of COVID-19 deaths of 151 countries published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) of the University of Washington in Seattle. These projections are computed using a deterministic SEIR (susceptible, exposed, infectious and recovered) according to the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions. We had predicted on December 31, 2020 for 151 countries, and according to each scenario, the new death crude rate (DCR) associated with COVID-19, its growth rate, the share of this cause of deaths in the yearly total number of deaths, and in the daily number of deaths on December 31, 2020. Excess of mortality (vs baseline growth of DCR) is varying markedly across countries. Regardless of the Scenario, Peru would be the country with the highest increase in its DCR. It would grow of 24 percent. Many European countries, like Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom would also know a significant increase in their DCR. Tunisia would have the highest in Africa regardless of the scenario. In the case of the 3rd scenario, Italy, France, Spain and many other countries would observe a DCR never had been observed during the past 60 years.

Dhafer Malouche
Dhafer Malouche
Professor of Statistics