Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://news.trust.org/item/20200420153239-vkzqv
...A Reuters calculation based on official data from March 1 to April 10 indicates the coronavirus death toll could be several thousand higher, or as much as 49% above the government's tally.
Between those dates, Spain reported 16,353 coronavirus deaths. But according to the National Epidemiology Centre's database MoMo, as of Monday there were 22,487 more deaths than normal for the time of year over the exact same period.
A large part of the 6,134 difference is likely related to COVID-19, said Pedro Gullon, a Spanish Epidemiology Society board member. But it had to be carefully interpreted because it could also include non-coronavirus deaths of people who did not attend hospitals, he said...
...All deaths in Spain are registered in annual statistics but there was a backlog at civil registries, which meant MoMo's data was likely to be incomplete, he said.
As a result, the gap of over 6,000 deaths may be larger. If other sources of data from just the two regions most-hit by COVID-19 - Madrid and Catalonia - are taken into account, there may be up to 1,987 further deaths above average not included in the coronavirus tally for March alone, a Reuters count shows.
If all those 8,121 deaths were coronavirus-related, the government's tally would be 49% higher.
Gullon validated Reuters interpretation but he cautioned: "There's no way to clearly know the exact death figures"...
...A Reuters calculation based on official data from March 1 to April 10 indicates the coronavirus death toll could be several thousand higher, or as much as 49% above the government's tally.
Between those dates, Spain reported 16,353 coronavirus deaths. But according to the National Epidemiology Centre's database MoMo, as of Monday there were 22,487 more deaths than normal for the time of year over the exact same period.
A large part of the 6,134 difference is likely related to COVID-19, said Pedro Gullon, a Spanish Epidemiology Society board member. But it had to be carefully interpreted because it could also include non-coronavirus deaths of people who did not attend hospitals, he said...
...All deaths in Spain are registered in annual statistics but there was a backlog at civil registries, which meant MoMo's data was likely to be incomplete, he said.
As a result, the gap of over 6,000 deaths may be larger. If other sources of data from just the two regions most-hit by COVID-19 - Madrid and Catalonia - are taken into account, there may be up to 1,987 further deaths above average not included in the coronavirus tally for March alone, a Reuters count shows.
If all those 8,121 deaths were coronavirus-related, the government's tally would be 49% higher.
Gullon validated Reuters interpretation but he cautioned: "There's no way to clearly know the exact death figures"...