Estimation of Excess All-Cause Mortality Due to COVID-19 in Thailand

  1. Chaiwat Wilasang
  2. Charin Modchang
  3. Thanchanok Lincharoen
  4. Sudarat Chadsuthi

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Abstract

Thailand has experienced the most prominent COVID-19 outbreak in 2021, resulting in a new record for COVID-19 cases and deaths. To assess the influence of the COVID-19 outbreak on mortality, we estimated excess all-cause and pneumonia mortality in Thailand during the COVID-19 outbreak from April to October 2021. We used mortality from the previous 5 years to estimate the baseline number of deaths using generalized linear mixed models. The models were adjusted for seasonality and demographics. We found that, during the outbreak in 2021, there was a significant rise in excess fatalities, especially in the older age groups. The estimated cumulative excess death was 14.3% (95% CI: 8.6–18.8%) higher than the baseline. The results also showed that the excess deaths in males were higher than in females by approximately 26.3%. The excess deaths directly caused by the COVID-19 infections accounted for approximately 75.0% of the all-cause excess deaths. Furthermore, excess pneumonia deaths were also found to be 26.2% (95% CI: 4.8–46.0%) above baseline.

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  1. Version published to 10.3390/tropicalmed7070116
  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.01.07.22268886v2 on medRxiv
  3. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.07.22268886: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    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:
    Our study, however, has some limitations. In this work, we did not consider other influential factors of death, such as influenza, pneumonia, and respiratory syncytial virus infection, due to the lack of data. The empirical findings from N. Suntronwong et al.[42] revealed that the advent of COVID-19 may change human behavior, such as wearing face masks and social distancing, resulting in a decreased transmission of influenza in Thailand. In addition, we did not consider other factors such as effects of heatwaves and ambient air pollution that may correlate with mortality[43, 44] due to the limitation of data. Future work may investigate these factors when the data becomes available. In summary, our findings showed that the COVID-19 outbreak in Thailand had a huge impact on mortality. During the outbreak in 2021, there was a significant rise in excess fatalities, especially in the older age groups. The increase in mortality was found to be higher in men than in women. It is worth stressing that up-to-date and reliable mortality data are important to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our modeling results could potentially provide insights into the COVID-19 outbreaks and provide a guide for outbreak control and intervention.

    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.

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    • 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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

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  4. Version published to 10.1101/2022.01.07.22268886v1 on medRxiv