MORBIDITY REPORT

LIKE FLIES!!

The challenge is not confined to the developing world. In England and Wales, the number of fatalities in the week ending April 10 was the highest this century. The figure was 76 per cent higher than the average for the same week in the past 5 years, and the number of excess deaths was 58 per cent higher than the total number of reported Covid-deaths for the same period. “If we want to . . . [understand] the ways different countries have responded to the surging pandemic and how [it] has affected the health of the population, the best way is to count excess deaths,” said David Leon, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Experts have warned of serious under-reporting of Covid-19 cases in residential facilities for the elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to the virus. “Very few countries appear to be testing people in care homes, staff and residents, systematically,” said Adelina Comas-Herrera, Research Fellow at the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre of the London School of Economics.

Even the much higher numbers of deaths in the pandemic suggested by excess mortality statistics are likely to be conservative, as lockdowns mean that “mortality from numerous conditions such as traffic accidents and occupational injuries possibly went down,” said Markéta Pechholdová, assistant professor of demography at the University of Economics, Prague.

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