In response to the shift to Class 5 of the new coronavirus under the Infectious Diseases Act and the fact that the number of people who died is no longer announced every day, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and other organizations statistically analyzed the trend in the number of deaths using the method of "excess deaths" and found that the number of deaths from late March to the middle of last month did not increase compared to previous years.
"Excess deaths" is a method to find out how much the actual number of deaths exceeded the statistically estimated number of deaths from past data, and the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and others analyzed it using data on the number of deaths provided by 17 local governments across Japan.
When we examined whether there were excess deaths for the eight weeks from March 3 to the middle of last month, we found that there was no significant increase in the number of deaths nationwide or regional, compared to the number estimated from the data for the past five years.
Experts who conducted the analysis said that although there were deaths from the new coronavirus, it is believed that there was no significant increase.
Excess deaths were reported to have increased significantly last year during the pandemic, but until now it took about three months to analyze because we used data from the vital survey, which was reported late by local governments.
The National Institute of Infectious Diseases says that by providing information on the number of deaths with the cooperation of some local governments and analyzing it, it will be possible to quickly grasp whether the number of deaths is increasing, and we will continue to announce it twice a month.
Professor Hashizume, The University of Tokyo: "No one has died of many people"
Professor Masahiro Hashizume of the University of Tokyo, who analyzed excess deaths, said, "At least right now, it seems that the new coronavirus epidemic has not caused more deaths than usual.
In addition, as a point to note when looking at excess mortality data, "Excess deaths are confirmed even if the number of people dying from heat stroke increases due to hot days in the summer, for example, and if influenza and the new coronavirus spread simultaneously in the winter and excess deaths increase, it is difficult to determine which led to the increase. The data on excess deaths is not something that can be viewed in a way that is easy to look at, but it is necessary to interpret it while checking various data showing the infection status together."