According to a study published by researchers at the University of Lille, the death figures for the coronavirus are underestimated by a proportion of 12.4%.

Indeed, these figures do not take into account the deaths at home of patients suffering from cardiac arrest following Covid-19. 

REPORTAGE

What if coronavirus mortality statistics had to be reassessed?

The current figures, which list 59,619 deaths since the start of the epidemic, only take into account deaths in hospitals and nursing homes, and not the deaths at home of patients suffering from cardiac arrest as a result of Covid.

According to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Lille, between 6 and 7,000 deaths should therefore be added. 

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President of the National Cardiac Arrest Register (RéAC), Pr Hervé Hubert and his team were first alerted during the first wave by teams from the SAMU.

"We had a very strong comeback from the emergency physicians who told us: 'Every day, we recover patients in cardiac arrest following Covid-19'", says Hervé Hubert at the microphone of Europe 1. And the study epidemiological and statistical that they launched showed that a number of home deaths from cardiac arrest had in fact been caused by the coronavirus.

"These patients who have had a cardiac arrest, overall, it is a cardiac arrest consecutive to Covid-19. Moreover, very clearly, these patients had as a characteristic respiratory causes which led to the cardiac arrest", further details Hervé Hubert. 

"We should think about updating the data"

Problem: these deaths were not included in the death statistics for the coronavirus, while they represent more than 12% of the death toll officially recorded in hospitals and nursing homes.

"This figure, overall, is a constant", explains Hervé Hubert.

"We should think about updating the national data by adding between 6 and 7,000 deaths, since these are the results that we obtain through our study."

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A mortality which, according to the researcher, would be just as underestimated in other European countries.