PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Determining \'excess mortality\' makes it possible to compare the burden of disasters between countries and over time, and thus also to evaluate the success of mitigation measures. However, the debate on coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) has exposed that calculations of excess mortalities vary considerably depending on the method and its specification. Moreover, it is often unclear what exactly is meant by \'excess mortality\'. We define excess mortality as the excess over the number of deaths that would have been expected counter-factually, that is without the catastrophic event in question. Based on this definition, we use a very parsimonious calculation method, namely the linear extrapolation of death figures from previous years to determine the excess mortality during the Covid-19 pandemic. But unlike most other literature on this topic, we first evaluated and optimized the specification of our method using a larger historical data set in order to identify and minimize estimation errors and biases. The result shows that excess mortality rates in the literature are often inflated. Moreover, they would have exhibited considerable excess mortalities in the period before Covid-19, if this value had already been of public interest at that time. Three conclusions can be drawn from this study and its findings: (i) All calculation methods for current figures should first be evaluated against past figures. (ii) To avoid alarm fatigue, thresholds should be introduced which would differentiate between \'usual fluctuations\' and \'remarkable excess\'. (iii) Statistical offices could provide more realistic estimates.
摘要：
确定“超额死亡率”可以比较国家之间以及随着时间的推移的灾害负担，从而评估缓解措施的成功。然而,关于2019年冠状病毒病(Covid-19)的辩论表明，根据方法和规格的不同，超额死亡率的计算差异很大。此外，通常不清楚“超额死亡率”的确切含义。我们将超额死亡率定义为超过预期的死亡人数，那是没有灾难性事件的。根据这个定义,我们使用了一种非常简约的计算方法，即对前几年的死亡数字进行线性外推，以确定新冠肺炎大流行期间的超额死亡率。但与大多数其他关于这个主题的文献不同，我们首先使用更大的历史数据集来评估和优化我们方法的规范，以识别和最小化估计误差和偏差。结果表明，文献中的超额死亡率经常被夸大。此外，如果这个价值在当时已经符合公众利益，他们在新冠肺炎之前的时期就会表现出相当大的超额死亡率。从这项研究及其发现中可以得出三个结论：（i）应首先根据过去的数字评估当前数字的所有计算方法。(ii)为避免警觉疲劳,应引入区分“通常波动”和“显著超额”的阈值。(三)统计局可以提供更现实的估计数。
