The Financial Times analysis of deaths during the coronavirus emergency shows a 464% increase, more than in New York. The data confirm the investigation carried out by L’Eco.
Bergamo is among the cities where the increase in deaths has been more marked than the average in recent years. Not only in Italy, not only in Europe, but all over the world. After the many studies carried out in the last few weeks – one of the first was the investigation by L’Eco di Bergamo which collected data from all the municipalities – even abroad it is now clear that the data explain only a (often minimal) part of the deaths.
Bergamo is a particular case for its drama. It also proves it Financial Times research which compared the mortality of different cities in every corner of the planet. According to the analysis, which involved 14 countries, a total of 122,000 excess deaths compared to normal levels, considerably higher than the 77,000 Covid-19 officers reported for the same places and periods. 60% more.
To calculate the over-mortality, the Financial Times used the same method of L’Eco: a comparison between the deaths for all causes in the weeks of the epidemic, in March and April 2020, with the average for the same period between 2015 and 2019 . In Lombardy, the Italian region most affected by the coronavirus, there are more than 13 thousand excess deaths for the almost 1,700 municipalities for which Istat published data are available. A 155% increase over the past few years. Bergamo has the sad international record with a jump of 464% of deaths beyond “normal” levels. A data also emerged from our investigation, which estimated at 5,400 total deaths in March 2020 against an average of 900 in recent years. Six times as much. The more you investigate the territories, the more the gap increases, with peaks of growth of up to 2000% as in the case of some villages in the Brembana Valley such as San Pellegrino Terme and San Giovanni Bianco.
Bergamo recorded the worst international increase ahead of New York with a 200% increase, and Madrid, the capital of Spain, with a 161% increase. In Jakarta, Indonesia, burial data say 1,400 deaths were recorded, fifteen times the figure of 90 Covid-19 certified official deaths. In all the countries analyzed, except Denmark, the number of deaths from March to April 2020 far exceeded the historical average: in Belgium by 60%, in Spain by 51%, in the Netherlands by 42% and in France by 34%.
It is still not possible to estimate the overall growth throughout Italy because Istat has so far published the data of the municipalities that have recorded more than ten deaths since the beginning of 2020 and where mortality has grown by at least 20% compared to the average of the last five years . There are not all Italian municipalities, only 1,689, and not all Bergamo municipalities, even if the province is among the most represented.
Similar analyzes have also been carried out since New York Times and fromEconomist, who first tried to estimate over-mortality by examining the case of Nembro, among the most affected countries in the province of Bergamo with 189 deaths since the beginning of the year.
In recent days, some researchers have been trying to investigate the causes of these deaths even further to accurately determine the nature of over-mortality. Enrico Bucci, Luca Leuzzi, Enzo Marinari, Giorgio Parisi and Federico Ricci Tersenghi, authors of a study published on «Scienza in Rete»
: “It arises spontaneously if all the uncertified excess deaths positive to the virus are in any case attributable directly to Covid-19 syndrome – explain the researchers -. In reality, a hospital system in crisis endangers the health and survival of all patients, subject to any disease, greatly reduces emergency assistance, suspends the ordinary monitoring of even very serious diseases. It is very probable that, in a limited period of time and in certain specific regions of the country, which were dramatically attacked by the epidemic, many people, in the absence of immediate treatment or assistance, did not survive. Add to that the fact that hospitals have become places of high spread of the virus and many people have delayed their access to the emergency room for fear of infection: in doing so they have added other avoidable deaths under normal conditions. It is useful to remember that this effect can also manifest itself in a situation of good functionality of the hospital system, for pure psychological reasons, if citizens with serious non-Covid diseases do not require assistance to hospital structures: there are signs that this phenomenon may be in part realistic, and it is certainly necessary to intervene to stem it ».
The study quantifies the deaths that occurred due to the virus, but not recognized as such and “the collateral damage of the epidemic” that occurred for other causes. In the province of Bergamo – with 5,400 in total and 2,425 “official” Covid – the four possible scenarios include a gap between 750 and 2,900 Covid deaths not traced by official statistics. An analysis scheme that will be very useful, indeed fundamental, when increasingly accurate data will be made available to study the impact of the epidemic.
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