2023-04-19 18:04:08
Without prejudging the potential peaks to come linked to the Sars-CoV-2 virus, the pandemic offers a first real respite in Europe. According to Eurostat data made public on 18th April, for the first time in three years, no excess mortality was recorded in all the countries of the European Union in February 2023. The number of deaths even was 2% lower than the average death rate for the months of February before the pandemic, from 2016 to 2019. Even if locally, some countries, primarily Greece and Cyprus, still recorded a significant excess mortality of + 12 %.
While the statistics include all causes of mortality, the excess mortality recorded over the past three years has been largely attributed to Covid, in particular during the four major peaks that occurred within the EU: + 25% in April 2020, + 40% in November 2020 , +21% in April 2021 and +27% in November 2021.
A surplus of 1.740 million deaths
Last fall, excess mortality was still + 12% in October, + 9% in November and + 19% in December. In total, from January 2020 to February 2023, a surplus of 1.740 million deaths was recorded within the EU and the countries of the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland).
In early May, the emergency committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to decide whether or not to maintain the public health emergency of international concern that was triggered on January 30, 2020 when the virus, from China, was beginning to sweep across the planet.
Even if this maximum alert were lifted, scientists agree that humanity will live sustainably with Covid. Michael Ryan, health emergencies manager at the WHO, insists that the virus “will join the pantheon of respiratory viruses, like influenza viruses” et “will continue to cause significant respiratory disease.”
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