The pandemic caused more than 300,000 deaths in Europe than official data and reduced life expectancy by more than a year, the largest decline since World War II, indicates a report released this Monday.
“As of the end of October 2022, more than 1.1 million deaths from Covid-19 were reported in the 27 EU countries, but data on excess mortality suggest that this is an underestimate and that another 300,000 people died due to the direct or indirect effect of the pandemic”, says the report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Commission (EC).
The document, which analyzes various health indicators in recent years, also points out that Covid-19 “reduced life expectancy in almost all European countries”, having decreased by more than a year in the European Union as a whole ( EU), “reaching levels last seen a decade ago”.
“The pandemic has had a dramatic impact on people’s lives in Europe and around the world. It has led to a reduction of more than a year in life expectancy in the EU in 2021 compared to 2019. These were the largest reductions in life expectancy since World War II in most EU countries,” the report continues.
The OECD and the EC also say that the vast majority of deaths from Covid-19 – more than 90% – were registered in people over 60 years of age.
In absolute numbers, until the end of October, the highest mortality from Covid-19 was registered in Italy (179,000 deaths), France (171,000), Germany (154,000), Poland (117,000) and Spain (115,000). , but as a percentage of the population, the highest rates were found in Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia and the lowest in Iceland and Norway.
According to the data now published, in Portugal the mortality from Covid-19, between March 2020 and June 2022, was slightly below the EU average and excess mortality was significantly within the average of 27.
“Differences between countries generally reflect variations in the age structure of the population, the timing and effectiveness of containment strategies, uptake of covid-19 vaccination in 2021 and 2022, and differences in the ability to health systems to treat patients with covid-19.”, explains the document.
According to the data now released, excess mortality in the EU, from the start of the pandemic to the end of June, was 26% higher than that registered for deaths from Covid-19.
“This translates to around 300,000 additional deaths compared to the reported number of deaths from covid-19, which could be due to the direct or indirect impact of the pandemic or other events,” the OECD said.
“The difference between excess mortality and reported Covid-19 deaths was particularly large in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Slovakia and Estonia, indicating that the data on Covid-19 mortality reported by these countries substantially underestimated the impact of the pandemic”, underlines the report.
In 2019, i.e. before the pandemic, the two leading causes of death in the EU were circulatory diseases, which accounted for more than 1.6 million deaths or 35% of all deaths, and cancer, which accounted for nearly 1.2 million deaths or 26% of all deaths.
Source: TSF
