Mortality from COVID-19 against the backdrop of other twentieth century mortality bursts
Abstract
Measuring mortality from COVID-19 through direct statistical observation of the causes of death faces a number of intractable obstacles that underestimate the lethality of the pandemic and undermine international comparability of data. An alternative is the indirect demographic method, which consists in comparing the expected mortality (in the absence of a pandemic) with the observed mortality from all causes. Its application leads to the conclusion that COVID-19 is extremely fatal: in the foci of the pandemic, the leaps in mortality that have already taken place are comparable to or exceed most bursts of mortality (except of course for wars) over the previous 100 years.
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References
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