How many and why do Chileans die daily? The effect of coronavirus on mortality in the country

In 2017, according to the annual statistics of vital statistics prepared by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) in Chile, they died 106 040 people, about 290 people a day, Of these, 27% were associated with diseases of the circulatory system, another 26% – with some types of cancer and a little more than 10% – with respiratory diseases.

In other words, for circulatory system diseases28 591 people were killed, 78 people a day. by malignant tumorsKilled 26,229 people, 71 people every day. by respiratory system diseases10,861 died, nearly 30 people every 24 hours.

The months in which more people died from this cause were June, July and August, from 1458, 1391 and 1129, respectively, the months in which more respiratory viruses circulate in the environment,

According to Department of Statistics and Medical Information (DEIS) MinsalIn 2016, out of 104,026,316 people did this because of pneumonia and 77 because of the flu.

Today due pandemic Covid 19133 people died, and 10 507 confirmed a positive result. How will these losses affect mortality in the country? Since March, when the first case of the disease was confirmed, in the 49 days during which the virus was detected, 2.7 people died every day.

In the United States coronavirus mortality became the third daily cause of death in early April, defeat Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes among others. Until April 2, added deaths from Covid-19 in this country, died 5184 people, an average of 784 die daily. Every day, 1774 people die from cardiovascular diseases, 1641 die of cancer, and 466 from accidents. To date, almost 36 thousand people have already died in this country in 108 days.

A week later, Covid-19 was already the main cause of death, an average of 1940 people per day. Today, 42,201 people are registered in the United States.

Announced on Sars-CoV-2 virus as a pandemic World Health Organization (WHO)instructed that in the mortality registry, followed by countries (ICD-10), the disease causing the new coronavirus be named “Acute respiratory disease due to the new coronavirus and classified as U07.1”.

Christian Garcia, Academician and Public Health Physician from W. de Santiagoexplains that since this is a new disease, it is difficult to understand how it will affect, but it cannot be denied that it will affect. “We don’t know how the virus and the disease will behave., It should be borne in mind that most of the dead people are people with chronic diseases, people who are also vulnerable to other winter diseasesLike flu and other viruses. It is difficult to understand how this will affect now. We must wait for this to happen, ”says the specialist.

There are two possibilities, he says. What is increased overall mortality from respiratory diseases from Covid-19 or what lower mortality from other winter diseases, and this decline is being replaced by deaths from coronavirusIn other words, people who die from coronaviruses are the same people who had the highest risk of dying from the circulation of respiratory viruses, which increase their circulation in the winter, says the specialist.

” flu virus and coronavirus They can compete not only at the level of infection, but also in the event of death. It is likely that mortality from the virus will not increase so much, but will replace it. But it’s not yet clear what will happen, ”Garcia insists.

Another aspect that is discussed is how coronavirus can affect, for example, treatment in hospitals, For other causes of death, such as mortality from a heart attack and death in the homes of people who had other pathologies and who have already been noticed in other countries, this has increased, adds an academic from W. de Santiago.

In Italy study done Towards Science Data at the beginning of the month when they counted 66 thousand official deathsmost of them in Lombardy indicated that the number of deaths from Covid-19 could be two and a half times greater than official deaths. The fact is that the number of deaths can be underestimated, because people who die are mostly elderly, weak adults, many of whom died at home or in special houses and did not pass the diagnostic test.

Another study published on MedRxiv, Estimated the number of deaths that occur in April in the United States, and compare them with expected deaths over the same period last year. According to this document, from 61,690 to 62,526 deaths of Covid-19 can occur this month.