Excess deaths hidden 100 days after the quarantine in Peru by COVID-19

TL;DR

This study estimates that Peru experienced approximately 36,230 excess non-violent deaths during the first 100 days of COVID-19 quarantine, highlighting hidden mortality impacts of the pandemic beyond direct COVID-19 fatalities.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of excess deaths in Peru during quarantine, accounting for underreported mortality and quarantine effects, which was not previously quantified.

Findings

Quarantine reduced non-violent deaths by 1.89 per million daily.

Estimated excess deaths during quarantine are 36,230, over four times COVID-19 official deaths.

Actual excess mortality is underestimated when only comparing to previous years.

Abstract

Objective: To make an estimate of the excess deaths caused by COVID-19 in the non-violent mortality of Peru, controlling for the effect of quarantine. Methods: Analysis of longitudinal data from the departments of Peru using official public information from the National Death Information System and the Ministry of Health of Peru. The analysis is performed between January 1, 2018 and June 23, 2020 (100 days of quarantine). The daily death rate per million inhabitants has been used. The days in which the departments were quarantined with a limit number of accumulated cases of COVID-19 were used to estimate the quarantine impact. Three limits were established for cases: less than 1, 10 and 100 cases. Result: In Peru, the daily death rate per million inhabitants decreased by -1.89 (95% CI: -2.70; -1.07) on quarantine days and without COVID-19 cases. When comparing this result with the total number of non-violent deaths, the excess deaths during the first 100 days of quarantine is 36,230. This estimate is 1.12 times the estimate with data from 2019 and 4.2 times the deaths officers by COVID-19. Conclusion: Quarantine reduced nonviolent deaths; however, they are overshadowed by the increase as a direct or indirect cause of the pandemic. Therefore, the difference between the number of current deaths and that of past years underestimates the real excess of deaths.