On the effect of COVID-19 pandemic in the excess of human mortality. The case of Brazil and Spain

PLoS One. 2021 Sep 2;16(9):e0255909. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255909. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Excess of deaths is a technique used in epidemiology to assess the deaths caused by an unexpected event. For the present COVID-19 pandemic, we discuss the performance of some linear and nonlinear time series forecasting techniques widely used for modeling the actual pandemic and provide estimates for this metric from January 2020 to April 2021. We apply the results obtained to evaluate the evolution of the present pandemic in Brazil and Spain, which allows in particular to compare how well (or bad) these countries have managed the pandemic. For Brazil, our calculations refute the claim made by some officials that the present pandemic is "a little flu". Some studies suggest that the virus could be lying dormant across the world before been detected for the first time. In that regard, our results show that there is no evidence of deaths by the virus in 2019.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Brazil / epidemiology
  • COVID-19 / epidemiology
  • COVID-19 / mortality*
  • COVID-19 / virology
  • Cause of Death*
  • Humans
  • Models, Theoretical*
  • Pandemics
  • SARS-CoV-2 / physiology
  • Spain / epidemiology
  • Survival Rate

Grants and funding

This work was supported in the form of funding in part by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain (Grant No. PID2019-108079GB-C22/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) awarded to NT. No additional external funding was received for this study.