The Burden of COVID-19
An analysis of how COVID-19 ranks against other causes of death in countries around the world
In this work we will look at how COVID-19 deaths compare with the expected number of deaths in a country, based on historical mortality data. We define the COVID-19 burden to be the number of COVID-19 deaths as a fraction of the expected number of deaths in a country over the same period of time; that is from the time of the first reported COVID-19 death.
Now, you might ask why we need yet another metric? What does this metric tell us that others, such as the more usual total number of fatalities per capita, do not? Just as the number of fatalities per capita is a better metric than a simple count of fatalities — because it normalises for population, making it easier to compare countries of different sizes — the COVID-19 burden goes one step further, because it also normalises for a country’s natural mortality rate. And by doing so, it combines a whole host of additional mortality factors, from population demographics, healthcare conditions, living standards, food and water security, conflict etc.
Thus, we present the COVID-19 burden as providing a more comprehensive account of a country’s experience under the current COVID-19 regime. Using datasets from OWID we will attempt to shed light on the…
