Excess mortality in Switzerland remains exceptionally high in 2022: Study

GENEVA

Around 73,000 people died in Switzerland last year, or 10% more than the Swiss Federal Statistical Office's estimate based on mortality trends over the past five years, according to a recent study.

The historian and epidemiologist Kaspar Staub from the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine of the University of Zurich spoke to the newspaper of the Swiss Tamedia Group, calling 2022 another "historic year."

Staub had analyzed the development of excess mortality in Switzerland in a research study, together with epidemiologists from the University of Bern and the Federal Statistical Office.

The researchers based their findings on monthly death figures in Switzerland since 1877.

According to the findings, excess mortality was highest in Switzerland in the pandemic year of 1918. At that time, the so-called Spanish flu was rampant, and 50% more people died than expected.

The figures show that the first year of the coronavirus pandemic follows that, as in 2020, 12% more people died than expected. The mortality rate of 2020 is followed by 2022, with 10% additional deaths compared to the estimate.

There had been similarly high values in 1900 and 1944 only, with the excess mortality in those years justified with heavy flu waves.

According to the study, the additional deaths in 2022 occurred exclusively in the over-65 age group, while mortality among younger groups was in line with the norm.

Among the elderly, excess mortality has reached almost the same level as in 2020, Staub also said, adding that there is a "striking temporal correlation between the corona waves and the peaks in the weekly excess mortality swings."

So, a connection with COVID-19 is obvious, according to the epidemiologist, even if, he added, other more indirect reasons could also be at play.

Staub stressed that "covid infections also pose medium- and longer-term health risks, especially in the elderly."

Other reasons, such as the heat in the summer, influenza in the winter, and possibly missed screenings in pandemic years, would also play a role.