COVID-19 mortality rate in Russia: forecasts and reality evaluation

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Abstract

COVID-19 is an extremely dangerous disease that not only spreads quickly, but is also characterized by a high mortality rate. Therefore, predicting the number of deaths from the new coronavirus is an urgent task.

Research objective

The aim of the study is to analyze the factors affecting COVID-19 mortality rate in various countries, to predict direct and indirect victims of the pandemic in the Russian Federation, and to estimate additional mortality during the pandemic based on the demographic data.

Data and methods

The main research method is econometric modeling. Comparison of various data was also applied. The authors’ calculations were based on data from the RSSS, the World Bank, as well as specialized sites with coronavirus statistics in Russia and in the world.

Results

A predictive estimation of the deceased number of people due to the pandemic in Russia was made. It is confirmed that the deaths proportion of the completed cases of the disease depends on the level of testing. It is shown that the revealed mortality of the disease depends on the proportion of completed cases, on the population age structure, and on how early the pandemic entered the country compared to the other countries. It is determined that the number of additional deaths due to the coronavirus is approximately 31 thousand people.

Conclusions

The analysis revealed that the relatively low proportion of COVID in Russia is the result of a special approach to the cause of death determination. The mortality rate in Russia in April 2020 was about 3% higher than in April 2019. The share of the deceased health workers in the total coronavirus mortality in the Russian Federation is higher than in the developed countries, which indicates an underestimation of the data on COVID-19 deaths in the Russian Federation, and the unsatisfactory quality of the Russian healthcare system. The number of direct and indirect victims of the pandemic in the Russian Federation at the end of July was approximately 43 thousand people.

Article activity feed

  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.25.20201376: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    However, even with these important limitations, the econometric modeling can trace some patterns in COVID-19 mortality rate (proportion of deaths from completed cases) in different countries. That indicator in percentage is taken as an explainable variable in models 1 and 2 (Table 3). Table 3 shows the coefficients bi of econometric equations

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.