According to data released Tuesday by the European Union, European countries registered an excess mortality rate of about 450,000 people between March and November last year.
Researchers collected monthly data and compared mortality with the average for the same period from 2016 to 2019.
Eurostat states that the data “give a general impression of the mortality consequences of the corona pandemic as it includes all deaths, regardless of the cause of death”.
The statisticians also determined a European average based on data from all European countries except Ireland, which provided no data.
Excess mortality peaked in November. Then the number of deaths was 40 percent higher than the average for the same month in the previous three years. Before that, there was an initial, much lower peak in April, when the number of deaths was 25 percent above the average.
After April there was a decrease in excess mortality, but it increased again from August. The mortality peak in November was exceptionally high in Bulgaria, Poland and Slovenia. There, more than 90 percent more deaths were registered than average in that month.
