[ad_1]
The data on mortality in Trentino are alarming: while from Christmas onwards, for example, the province of Bolzano has an average of 4 deaths per day, in Trentino we have numerous consecutive days with about ten victims (but yesterday there were six). But it is not just the latest period: Istat data on mortality throughout 2020 confirm that Trentino has a real anomaly, with mean values that are even 70% further from the national average.
In the year that just ended, deaths from all causes in Trentino are more than 6,000. As of November 30, there were 5,730. To these must be added at least the 288 deaths from Covid in December, for a total of 6,018, which still does not consider deaths from other causes in the last month. This level of mortality is higher not only than in 2019, equivalent to 5,075 deaths, but to all those recorded in the last fifty years: in 1973, the first data of the historical series of Ispat, the deaths were 4,863. In just five years, they have exceeded 5,000. To have data similar to 2020, it is necessary to go back to the war years. The cause of the increase in deaths is, of course, the pandemic. Deaths from coronavirus as of December 31, 2020 are 1,007. But the excess mortality compared to the 2015-2019 death average is not fully explained by official Covid data.
As of November 30, the latest data available, 1,086 deaths were registered, more than the average of the five years prior to the same date. But the Covid deaths at the end of November were 719. Therefore, there are an excess of 367 unexplained deaths from the epidemic.
A worrying analysis, which the former rector of the University of Trento, Professor Davide Bassi, comments with a lucid discussion on his blog
PROFESSOR BASSI ANALYSIS
The ISTAT-ISS report on mortality linked to Covid-19 in Italy, updated at the end of November. Here you can find the ISTAT-ISS report on the mortality recorded in Italy during the current year. The data is updated at the end of November 2020. Only in the first months of 2021 will it be possible to have the final version of the document that will also include the consolidated data for December. Unfortunately, the changes (for the worse) can be significant because much of the country is still dealing with the second wave pandemic, but some results are already conclusive.
Comparing the 2020 trend with the average for the 2015/2019 period, ISTAT found that during the February-November 2020 period in Italy there was an excess mortality equivalent to about 84,000 cases. By comparison, in the years before Covid, the average number of deaths in Italy was on the order of 650,000 cases per year. Between February and November 2020, just under 58,000 cases of deaths classified as Covid-19 were reported to the ISS. The additional deaths may be due to Covid cases not reported to the ISS (there have been many, especially during the first pandemic wave) or “indirect” deaths, such as deaths related to other diseases that have not been adequately treated. due to the emergency situation in which many Italian hospitals were. It must also be said that, especially during the first pandemic wave, the severe confinement measures have caused a decrease in deaths linked to certain causes of death, such as traffic accidents.
It should be noted that the excess mortality recorded by ISTAT does not take into account those who “would have died regardless of Covid-19”. It is a “workhorse” of deniers who often told us that ISS statistics were inflated by cases incorrectly attributed to the pandemic. ISTAT simply counted more deaths than the average number of deaths that had occurred in previous years, so “who would have died anyway” did not contribute to the excess mortality.
The ISTAT analysis is very well done and contains detailed information on the territorial distribution of the excessive mourning related to the two pandemic waves. There is also specific information related to the sex and age of people who have left us prematurely.
Specifically, the given the excess mortality in Trentino, it is confirmed as one of the highest in Italy, both during the first and the second pandemic wave. Below I show you a table that summarizes some of the information available in the ISTAT-ISS report. In particular, the table shows the percentage increase in mortality registered in some Regions / ASF during the most critical months of the first and second pandemic waves (December 2020 is still missing):
We observed that only in three cases there was an excess of mortality greater than 100% (which corresponds to the doubling of mortality): Lombardy during the months of March and April and Valle D’Aosta during the last month of November.
Trentino has always been among the highest percentage levels of excess mortality, both during the first and the second wave. The value of Trentino has always been much higher than the national average and, apart from the month of March, it has also always exceeded the average for northern Italy. Data for December are still missing from the ISTAT analysis, but considering the number of deaths reported so far due to Covid-19, it is presumable that Trentino also recorded a significant increase in mortality for December.
I remember, among other things, that between October and November Trentino officially reported 239 Covid deaths to the ISS compared to the 276 reported by Alto Adige. If we look at the ISTAT data, the excess mortality registered in Trentino in the October – November period was + 50%, compared to the value of + 34.9% in Alto Adige (table 4c of the ISTAT report). In absolute terms, in the two months considered, Trentino registered a total of 1,251 deaths, compared to 997 cases registered in Alto Adige. As you can see, there is a strong discrepancy that could be explained by assuming that, even in autumn, many Covid deaths in Trentino “escaped” the statistics of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità.
For the sake of the integrity of the information, during the two months considered, Trentino reported 248 deaths from Covid to the National Civil Protection (which has a data collection system different from the ISS), a figure slightly higher than the ISS figure, but still far from the excess deaths reported by ISTAT.
To see if the case of Trentino represents a singularity or not compared to the other Regions, I tried to extend the comparison to all other Northern regions. The data is summarized in the table that I inform you below. The column “% increase” corresponds to the excess mortality rate that the ISTAT has detected on average during the months of October and November. The third and fourth columns report, respectively, the absolute value of the excess deaths registered by ISTAT and the cases reported to the Istituto Superiore di Sanità as Covid-19 cases. The last column represents the percentage difference between the two data.
We observe that, as a national average, around a third of the excess deaths reported by ISTAT coinciding with the second pandemic peak were not registered in the ISS as Covid cases. These are average values, but there are strong differences between region and region. Apart from Alto Adige, which had an excess of deaths from ISTAT less than the deaths from Covid reported to the ISS, for all other Regions / HAPPs in the North there are variable differences between approximately -10% and a maximum in Piedmont which is close to of -70%. Valle D’Aosta, Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli VG and Emilia-Romagna show variations of between 10 and 20%. In the case of Trentino, the deaths reported to the ISS are just over half of the excess deaths recorded by ISTAT. In my opinion, the issue deserves further study.
The ISTAT study could superficially be viewed only as a cold accounting exercise. It is actually a precious tool because it tells us how things really were, beyond the smoke screens that political and health authorities may have tried to lift.
At the beginning of the pandemic in Trentino, someone said that “anyway only the people who are dying die”, adding that “the accounts will be made at the end of the year when the situation clears up.”
The end of the year has come. The numbers are clear in all his drama. Even in Trentino we should start doing the math.
[ad_2]
