Read on Twitter
The @nytimes (among others) recently analyzed excess mortality.
As a Belgian I was surprised by the results (we would be over-reporting ?!), and did my own analysis for BE, NL, FR, EN. Full datasets, methodology and sources at https://github.com/pduchesne/covid-overmortality.
As a Belgian I was surprised by the results (we would be over-reporting ?!), and did my own analysis for BE, NL, FR, EN. Full datasets, methodology and sources at https://github.com/pduchesne/covid-overmortality.
First observation: by week 14, Belgium underestimates by 26%, others by ~50%. So yes, Belgium appears to be less under-reporting, hence the higher mortality seen in official reports. Yet quite different from https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1252673503435816966 .
@nytimes, where did you get your belgian data?
@nytimes, where did you get your belgian data?
When it comes to observed excess mortality, BE, NL and EN have a similar overmortality of ~280 deaths per M after 4 weeks of pandemic, and FR is lower at 213. However such a comparison is hazardous, as it's difficult to align weekly data on hypothetic pandemic starting points.
I would add that, in official stats, Belgium distances itself clearly from these countries from Apr, 8th on. So I'm looking forward to the next batch of data to analyze that. Stay tuned. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-million?tab=chart&time=2020-03-20..&country=BEL+FRA+NLD+GBR
