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Between March 2 – the date of the first death of covid-19 in Portugal – and August 30, 6,312 more people died than the average, in the same period of the last five years, reveals the National Institute of Statistics (INE ). There was an increase in mortality in people older than 70 years and there was also an increase in deaths that occurred outside of hospitals.
“The increase in mortality, verified in March, compared to the average of the last five years is explained only in part by deaths from covid-19,” says the institute, which counts, in the period analyzed, 1,822 deaths from covid. According to the bulletin, which presents preliminary data, the increase in deaths “reached a peak” in the week of April 6 to 12, with values falling “gradually” until the end of the state of emergency. But in May, between the 25th and the 31st, there was a “new peak in mortality”.
In the weeks of June 8-21, mortality returned to the values of previous years, but it did not remain so. “From week 26 (June 22 to 28) there was an increase in mortality in 2020 compared to the average for the same period, reaching its highest point in week 29 (July 13 to 19), plus some 800 deaths” , reads the analysis, which indicates that “the fact that July was a month of” extremely hot and hot wave “will not be ignored”.
The INE explains that in the analyzed period more than 70% of deaths (41,370) were of people 75 years of age or older. And of these, 60% were people aged 85 and over. “Compared to the average number of deaths observed in the same period of 2015-2019, another 5,518 people died aged 75 years or older, of which another 4,371 were 85 years or older.”
Deaths increase outside hospitals
The INE bulletin also highlights the increase in deaths outside hospitals, although the highest proportion of deaths has always occurred in these types of establishments. It states that “the proportion of deaths at home and elsewhere was, as of March 2, higher than the 2015-2019 average, reaching 46.1% in week 12 (March 16 to 23) of that week. ”.
“The surplus of deaths outside the hospital context is important throughout the week, but especially until the beginning of June (week 23). In recent weeks, the increase in deaths was distributed more evenly between the hospital environment and the outside, ”the bulletin reads. In these six months, 34,167 died in hospitals and 23,624 outside these units. Which translates to another 1,695 and 4,617 deaths, respectively, compared to the 2015-2019 average during the same period.
In an analysis by regions, “the greatest increase in the number of deaths in relation to the 2015-2019 average was registered in the North region, with the exception of the last week of June and the first of July, when this increase was greater in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon ”.
In an analysis of the 24 European countries that provided data to Eurostat on the number of deaths per week, and for which information is available for all weeks from 2016 to 2019, “it appears that mortality in these countries as a whole was , in the first weeks 2020, below the 2016-2019 average ”. “Since the beginning of March, unlike what has been observed in recent years, in 2020 there was a significant increase in the number of deaths, reaching a peak in week 14 (March 30 to April 5), plus 44% of deaths than in the same weeks of 2016-2019 ”.
Mortality in Portugal “has followed a similar trend, up to that moment, nevertheless showing a difference with the lower average, below 25%”. “In the following weeks, mortality in Europe approached average. In Portugal, despite an initial period characterized by a reduction in excess mortality, it increased again, remaining far from the average until week 23, “says the INE.
