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The year is not over yet, but it is already known that 2020 will set a record in the number of deaths in Brazil. Driven by the deaths caused by covid-19, 1,314,097 death certificates were issued as of November, according to data from registry offices made available by Arpen Brasil (National Association of Registrars of Natural Personnel).
The data reported includes all types of deaths, from illnesses to accidents to murders. Each death, necessarily, generates a record.
Even with a month to close the accounts for the year, the number of deaths computed already exceeds the total of 2019, when there were 1.25 million records in the country, it was the highest number recorded among all the years so far.
The number of deaths up to November this year is still subject to correction, as registry offices can still include more data in the system.
The month with the most deaths this year, and also a record for deaths in just one month, was July, when 138,943 deaths were recorded. The record so far in a single month was July 2018, when there were 119,675 deaths.
Covid-19 is the leading cause of death among Brazilians this year. Between March and November, 167,000 death certificates were recorded for the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
The data differ from the registry made by the Ministry of Health
The number of deaths reported by the registry offices is slightly lower than that of the Ministry of Health, which until November had 173 thousand deaths from covid-19. This can be explained because many of the deaths related to the new coronavirus only have confirmation of the disease days after death and, consequently, after the issuance of the death certificate.
The number of deaths from a single disease in a year, caused by covid-19, is unprecedented in the country. The ischemic heart disease group had been, until then, the leader among macro-causes of death, with 116,000 deaths in 2019.
For the epidemiologist and researcher Ana Brito, who is part of the staff of Fiocruz (Fundación Oswaldo Cruz) and UPE (University of Pernambuco), the high number of deaths in the comparison between 2019 and 2020 can only be explained by the pandemic.
“Covid-19 is the only different condition to justify this death burden. It is the only major cause that was not present in 2019,” he says. The expert also says that the data already closed for the first semester point to an increase in the number of deaths in the country of around 10%.
Summer should not bring good news, assesses virologist
For the president of SBV (Brazilian Society of Virology), Fernando Rosado Spilki, the difference in deaths that already appears this year is already an example of the destructive potential of the new disease. “This increase beyond normal gives a dimension of the impact of the pandemic,” he says.
He says the forecast for the summer is pessimistic. “Today the pandemic is accelerating in 21 states, and the numbers are mostly higher than the peak of the first wave. Unfortunately, the trend for the next few weeks continues to worsen, depending on the availability of vaccines and the adoption of the strategy, it is possible that we will still have a third wave in autumn / winter, repeating what is observed in countries like Japan and the United States, “he says.
According to data from Startup In Loco, the index of social isolation has been decreasing month by month in Brazil. This Thursday (10), for example, the rate of people who did not move was 36.3%. On the same Thursday, April 13, this rate was 44.3%.
Covid may have caused more deaths than reported
OR Twitter he also presented the data to the epidemiologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, Antônio Silva Lima Neto. He says that the final numbers for 2020 showed the tragedy of covid-19, but will only tell a part of what caused the new coronavirus. “The size of the covid problem is still not very clear,” he says.
He explains that it is almost a consensus among researchers that the number of deaths from the disease is much higher than the total calculated by the Ministry of Health.
“This issue of ‘excess deaths’ is highly debated, because the covid-19 responds in a much greater number than the 180 thousand already registered. We have studies that indicate that there were a series of deaths that were like ‘clarifying’, which ends up obscuring the magnitude of the covid-19 event in relation to the total deaths. It is an issue to clarify better ”, he points out.
Deaths per year
- 2016 – 1,010,399
- 2017 – 1,044,475
- 2018 – 1,189,834
- 2019 – 1,256,141
- 2020 – 1,314,097 *
* Number until November and still subject to increase.
Source: Arpen Brasil
