Estimating Excess Mortality Associated with COVID-19 Pandemic: A 151 Cross-countries Study

Background: Comparable global data on COVID-19 excess mortality are scarce. We aimed to estimate excess of mortality associated with COVID-19 and its share on global mortality according three scenario of the infection prevention. Methods: For this analysis, we used population data and deaths number of 151 countries provided by the World Bank database and the projections of COVID-19 deaths for the same countries published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) of the University of Washington in Seattle. We estimated then then the COVID-19 excess mortality under three scenarios : (i) 95% mask usage in public in every location, (ii) Current projection (iii) Mandates easing, which reflects continued easing of social distancing mandates. Finding: We had estimated for the 151 countries, according to the three scenarios, the growth rate of the expected death crude rate (DCR) due to the deaths caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of this new cause of mortality in the yearly total number of deaths from all causes and the projected daily share of deaths from COVID-19 on daily deaths from all causes. Finally, mortality of the earliest year having registered a highest DCR was compared to the new one including the COVID-19 deaths. Excess deaths (vs baseline growth of DCR), is varying markedly across countries. Regardless of the Scenario, Peru would be the country with the highest increase in its DCR. It would grow of 24%. Many European countries, like Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom would also know a significant increase in their DCR. Tunisia would have have the highest in Africa regardless of the scenario. In the case of the 3rd scenario, Italy, France, Spain and many other countries would observed a DCR never had been observed during the past 60 year. Interpretation: We provide simple model and an online tool for estimating excess mortality from the COVID-19 pandemic in each country an interactive Dashboard up dated and accessible.