Excess mortality in Russia from April 2020 to mid-December 2021 exceeded one million people, according to journalists from the publications “Holod” and “Mediazona” (recognized as a “foreign agent” in Russia) based on data from Rosstat and statements by Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova. Independent demographer Alexey Raksha also provides similar data.
These figures are denied by the Ministry of Health. Comparisons show that Russia has surpassed other countries in terms of excess mortality. Excess mortality is the excess of the actual number of deaths per capita during a given calendar period over the expected number of deaths. It includes not only those who died directly from the coronavirus, but also those whose deaths were related to the pandemic – for example, a person who did not receive medical care in time because the health system was overwhelmed. This indicator can also include those who died from COVID-19 or were infected but for some reason their illness was not diagnosed.
At the meeting of the State Duma on Thursday, Golikova, referring to the operational data, stated that the mortality rate in the first half of December 2021 decreased by 14.7%. Based on this statement (and a number of previous statements by the Deputy Prime Minister), journalists from “Khodl” concluded that it refers to a decrease in comparison with the first half of November.
The official Rosstat statistics on mortality in November and December have not yet been published. However, based on Golikova’s statements and available statistics for October, “Kholod” calculated that about 256 thousand people died in Russia in November (according to Rosstat data, a little over 247 thousand Russians died in October. Golikova later stated that the number of deaths in November was 3.4% higher, or about 255.6 thousand people). “In the first half of November, there were about 128,000 deaths, as calculated by journalists, since the statistics were quite consistent. Accordingly, in the first half of December, about 109,000 people died (14.7% less, according to the deputy prime minister)”.
Excessive mortality in relation to expected (148 thousand for the whole month) amounted to about 35 thousand people, journalists conclude. It is not specified on what data the expected mortality is based. If you add 987,930 people who have died beyond expectations from April 2020 to November 2021 to these 35,000, the total number will be 1 million 23 thousand people for the entire period, the publication writes.
The news item does not specify how the number of excess deaths was calculated, only mentioning that the count was done “according to Golikova’s words”.
We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. The number of episodes should remain: episodes. The end of the story: Advertising Podcasts The same figure for excess mortality is also used by “Mediasona” in its calculations.
Independent demographer Alexey Raksha told the BBC that according to his calculations, Russia had 951 thousand excess deaths (since the beginning of the pandemic) at the beginning of December, and at the current mortality rate, the number of excess deaths will reach about one million around December 23-24. “I used the final annual data from Rosstat, which is hardly published anywhere; I also take the average forecast variant from Rosstat, which was published on their website in March 2020, and apply the average seasonality of the last nine pre-pandemic years (the average share of each month, taking into account the leap year of February) and obtain the number of deaths that would have occurred without taking the pandemic into account,” the demographer explains his calculation. “Then I compare them with the final data from Rosstat for 2020 and the operational data for 2021, as well as the estimate for November and the estimate for December based on the first two weeks, which can be determined based on Golikova’s words and my insider information,” he says. Raksha worked at Rosstat for a long time and was specifically involved in demography, so he knows how such calculations are made.
Head of the Ministry of Health Mikhail Murashko, commenting on these calculations, told the BBC that they are incorrect, but did not provide other figures. “This is not true, there are official statistics from Rosstat. You are lying, your data are inaccurate. In Russia there is the best organized accounting of all indicators of morbidity and mortality statistics. I doubt that any country can show the same accounting systems. Currently, there is a WHO group working to evaluate how the system is formed. And don’t even think about publishing your fakes, it’s not true – that’s where you started,” he said.
Rosstat does not calculate excess mortality, the agency publishes the total number of deaths and separately the number of deceased persons diagnosed with coronavirus. Several international databases calculate excess mortality. According to one estimate, Russia significantly outperformed other countries, including Brazil and the United States. These calculations are based on the number of excess deaths per million people compared to the expected number.
If we look not at the cumulative number of deaths, but at the number of deaths per month, it becomes clear that Russia is ahead of other countries in this respect as well. Moreover, it turned out to be among the worst performers in the second half of 2021 – it was during this period that records in the number of deaths were almost daily.
“Meduazone” writes that in its calculations to assess the excess mortality it relies on the expected mortality rate for 2020, calculated “as a linear estimate of the mortality trend for 2015-2019”. However, there are other methods, says the leading scientific head of the International Laboratory of Population and Health Research at the Russian Economic School (RЭШ), Evgeny Andreev. “You can simply compare the data with the last year before the pandemic and calculate how many people died in a similar period in 2019. You can take a projection for 2020-2021 and calculate how many should have died and then subtract the actual number of deaths from that,” he told the BBC. According to Andreiev, the total of one million excess deaths since the beginning of the pandemic is in line with the authorities’ forecasts and is not unexpected. “This is not such a fantastic figure, considering that the mortality rate in Russia is falling very rapidly by European standards,” he says.
According to the scientist’s calculations, in the first quarter of 2020 (before the active phase of the pandemic began in Russia), life expectancy in Russia was 0.37 years longer than in the first quarter of 2019. “We can assume that without the pandemic, the whole year would have been the same. The European pace is almost twice as slow because life expectancy in Russia has always been lower, and it is always easier to catch up than to move ahead,” the demographer says.
At the end of November, “Vedomosti” calculated that the number of deaths in Russia last year (from December 2020 to November 2021) exceeded 2.4 million people, and the population decline, excluding migration, approached 1 million people. The publication concludes that the mortality rate in Russia last year reached a record level since World War II. The previous record for the number of deaths was set in 2003, when 2.37 million people died, and the worst figures for losses were in 2000 (958,532 people), the publication recalled.
In November, Golikova said that 91.2% of excess mortality in Russia was due to coronavirus. According to the latest monthly data from Rosstat, nearly 75,000 patients with Covid-19 died in Russia in October – the highest monthly Covid-related mortality during the entire pandemic. The sharp rise in coronavirus mortality in Russia resumed in October – since then, the country has been among the world leaders in Covid-19 deaths.
The new strain of the coronavirus “Omicron” has already arrived in Russia. The head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said yesterday that she does not exclude the sequential spread of “Omicron” in the country, although the authorities are currently trying to immediately isolate all infected individuals. “This [proliferation] is very real, because proliferation is very widespread in the world. All we are doing is to stop this process, but no country in the world can exclude it today,” Popova told the RIA Novosti agency.
Meanwhile, the Bloomberg agency published the results of a study conducted by scientists from the USA and Switzerland, which concluded that none of the patients vaccinated with “Sputnik V” developed antibodies against “Omicron”. In response, the Gamaleya Center assured that the Russian vaccine, with the use of a booster dose of “Sputnik Light”, is effective against the new strain.
On Thursday, the State Duma adopted in the first reading a government bill on the introduction of QR codes in public places, which caused a storm of controversy both among the population and in the parliament itself. At the same time, another government document on QR codes in transport, which had previously been withdrawn from consideration, was sent for revision. Even in the absence of a federal law, many regions of the country have already implemented regional resolutions on QR codes in restaurants, shopping malls, and other public places. Some regions (such as Volgograd Oblast and Kamchatka) have introduced codes for certain types of intercity transportation, and the authorities of Tatarstan have converted the entire public transportation system to QR codes.