In 2021, excess mortality in the EU started to fall back in the first two months: +16% in January and +5% in February after as much as +41% in November 2020. In March 2021 the rate registered a slight increase to 9%, with different national trends.
Between January 2020 and March 2021, EU experienced two complete cycles of excess mortality: the first between March and May 2020 (reaching a 25.1% excess rate in April) and the second between August 2020 and February 2021 (reaching a 40.6% excess rate in November 2020).
This information comes from data on excess mortality published by Eurostat today, based on a weekly deaths data collection. The article presents only a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article.
Source data: demo_mexrt
How did the situation evolve in your country?
Although excess mortality was observed during most of the year across Europe, the peaks and intensity of outbreaks varied greatly across countries. For further analysis, you can read the Statistics Explained article on excess mortality and use the new interactive tool by selecting the country you would like to analyse:
For more information:
- Excess mortality refers to the number of deaths from all causes measured during a crisis, above what could be observed in ‘normal’ conditions. The excess mortality indicator draws attention to the magnitude of the health crisis by providing a comprehensive comparison of additional deaths amongst the European countries and allows for further analysis of its causes.
- Please note that while a substantial increase in excess mortality largely coincides with the COVID-19 outbreak, this indicator does not discriminate among the causes of death and does not catch differences across sex or age classes.
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