ANALYSIS OF EXCESS, ALL-CAUSE MORTALITY IN A POPULATION WITH HEALTH INSURANCE IN ARGENTINA, IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Resumen

Introduction. The covid-19 pandemic has had a profound impact worldwide. Argentina faced one of the highest covid-19 surges and longest lockdowns in the world. Objective. Estimate the excess deaths from any cause between March and August 2020 in a population with private health insurance. Methods. We analyzed the death rate of the entire study period (March-August 2020) and the death rate per month. We compared the observed rates with the average expected rate and the limit of the 95% confidence interval (CI). Normal distribution was considered for this comparison. Results. 429 deaths were registered during the study period. Of those, 19.1% (82/429) were identified as covid-19-related. Despite these covid-19 related deaths, a significant increase of mortality in the overall population was not observed in that time frame. March, April, and June showed a significant decrease in mortality rates. However, August 2020 had a mortality rate of 6.9 per 10,000, with an excess of mortality of 67.2% compared to a historical average of 4.1 per 10,000 and 55.2% to the upper limit of the 95% CI for the August months in 2015-2019 (p <0.001). This pattern occurred primarily in the group aged 60 years and older (32.3 per 10,000 vs. 20.4 per 10,000; p <0.001). Conclusions. Even though March, April, and June showed a decrease in mortality rates, in August 2020 we observed a significant increase of the reported mortality in the population aged 60 and older.