Excess deaths in SA over 170 000
South Africans have become accustomed to daily updates from the department of health on the number of Covid-19 deaths recorded in the previous 24 hours.
But countries around the world, including the United States and the United Kingdom, have also made efforts to record another indicator, referred to as “excess deaths”.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says: “While 1 813 188 Covid-19 deaths were reported in 2020, recent WHO estimates suggest an excess mortality of at least 3 000 000.”
In South Africa, the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) has also been tracking these numbers. Its burden of disease research unit publishes a weekly report on excess deaths every Wednesday.
“In its broadest sense, excess deaths are defined as the number of people who die within a time period above that which would be expected based on historic death rates,” Dr Jonathan Clarke, a public health expert and biostatician from Imperial College London’s Centre for Mathematics of Precision Healthcare, told Africa Check.
According to the WHO, many countries do not have the ability to accurately record vital data, such as deaths and causes of death.
Different countries also use different methods to test and report Covid-19 deaths. To overcome these challenges “many countries have turned to excess mortality as a more accurate measure of the true impact of the pandemic”.
The international health organisation says excess death data “accounts for the total number of deaths directly attributed to the virus as well as the indirect impact”.
Prof Debbie Bradshaw, a chief specialist scientist at the SAMRC’s burden of disease research unit and a co-author of the weekly excess death report, told Africa Check the unit used death data from 2018 and 2019 to calculate expected deaths last year. The latest reported number of Covid deaths is 59 621. There have been nearly 171 000 excess deaths. – Courtesy of Africa Check, a non-profit organisation promoting accuracy in public debate. www.africacheck.org