Exploring the Gap Between Excess Mortality and COVID-19 Deaths in 67 Countries | Global Health | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network
▻https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2781968
The dashed diagonal line represents the equality between the number of excess deaths and of COVID-19 reported deaths. The 0 marker on the y-axis indicates no excess mortality. Countries are colored according to their decile of the test-to-case ratio. Countries appearing in gray had unavailable or incomplete data on testing.
Results
Most of the 67 countries experienced an increase in mortality during 2020 (Table). Among countries with increased mortality (ie, those located above 0 on the y-axis in the Figure), a small number appeared under the identity line, showing lower-than-expected mortality after subtracting COVID-19 deaths. Countries located above the identity line can be visually classified into 2 groups: 1 with several Latin American and East European countries, which exhibit a large gap between EM [Excess mortality] and CCM [COVID-19 confirmed mortality] (eg, Mexico, 212 excess deaths vs 96 COVID-19 deaths per 100 000 population); the other, more heterogeneous group showed a moderate EM beyond CCM (eg, Greece, 57 excess deaths vs 45 COVID-19 deaths per 100 000 population). Countries with negative EM also had very low CCM and were mainly located in East Asia. The lowest figures of EM and CCM generally belonged to countries with higher testing capacity (in green) and the largest differences between EM and CCM to countries with poorer testing capacity (in red).
