COVID-19: Argentina is the second country in the region that has increased the number of deaths the least during the pandemic

Argentina is the second country in South America with the fewest excessive deaths in 2020, only after Uruguay, which did not experience any COVID-19 epidemic last year. According to data published by the statistics site Our World In Data, affiliated with the University of Oxford, The pandemic caused an increase in the number of deaths here of around 12%, well below the regional and world average, which explains the effectiveness of the health control policies applied during the first months of the crisis.

Collection of mortality data It is considered the most reliable method to measure the consequences of this pandemic because it avoids the under-registration of victims. into which states may fall, either through collapse, lack of preparation or malicious manipulation on the part of the authorities. Over the months, in many countries, it has been revealed that the total number of fatal cases of coronavirus is significantly different from that shown by official statistics.

In India, for example, one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, a joint study between the local government and Harvard University revealed a frightening fact: coronavirus death toll could be up to 10 times higher than 400,000 reported so far by the authorities; a 1000 percent increase. In the United States, in 2020, there were 209,000 deaths from COVID-19, but in total there were 330,000 more deaths, or 55% more.

The calculation is done compare the total number of deaths in a year with the average value of this data for previous years. The result, while not discriminating against those who died from the virus, shows the effect the pandemic has had on society. The number of deaths from COVID-19 could be even higher, given that mobility restrictions and care measures prevented deaths from other causes, such as traffic accidents or preventable illnesses.

Another example: Uruguay, which last year did not experience major epidemics and was able to control infections, recorded negative excess mortality statistics. In other words, fewer people died in 2020 than the average for previous years. Something similar happened in Argentina in the early months of the pandemic. Between April and June of last year, there were fewer deaths than the average for those months between 2015 and 2019. From the easing of care measures, the excess rose to 12%.

By removing the Uruguayan exception, This figure is the lowest value for all of South America, showing that across the region, this was the country that was best able to cope with the pandemic., avoiding collapse situations that trigger the death toll. Argentina’s excess mortality of 12.1 percent improves the performance of Paraguay (15 percent), Chile (17.8 percent), Brazil (20 percent), Colombia (29.2 percent), Bolivia (48.8 percent), Ecuador (64.3 percent) and Peru (94.3 percent).