France recorded an excess mortality of 95,000 deaths during the pandemic between March 2020 and December 2021, INSEE said in a study published Thursday.

This figure is however lower than the estimated toll of Covid-19 because some “frail people would have died even without the epidemic”, according to this report.

To arrive at this result, experts from the public institute determine the number of deaths "expected in the absence of an epidemic" - taking into account the increase and aging of the population, and the downward trend in risk of death at each age.

Then, they compare it to the number of deaths actually recorded, all causes combined.

Impact of the #COVID19 epidemic: 95,000 more #deaths than expected from March 2020 to December 2021 👉 https://t.co/nsy30Gn28m pic.twitter.com/Kr0MZlDaOI

— Insee (@InseeFr) May 20, 2022


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Why are the numbers so different?

In total, this calculated excess mortality reached + 55,600 from March to December 2020, then + 39,100 in 2021, i.e. almost + 95,000 deaths in all.

Over the same period, the human toll of the Covid-19 epidemic was however much heavier: from 130,000 to 146,000 people were killed by the virus, according to various estimates.

This difference is explained by the fact that some victims of Covid are “fragile” people whose demographers consider that, even without the epidemic, they would have died of another cause (diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc.).

This is what specialists call the “harvest effect”.

In addition, the epidemic has also reduced other causes of death, such as road accidents, which are fewer during the confinements.

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