Riesgo de muerte por COVID-19 en comparación con las muertes por enfermedades respiratorias, período de 2015-2019, Chile

Abstract

Risk of death from COVID-19 compared to deaths from respiratory diseases, 2015-2019, Chile

Objective: Determine when the risk of death from COVID-19 in 2020-2023 differs from the risk of death from viral respiratory illness in 2015-2019. Materials and Methods: Ecological time series study. Deaths due to COVID-19 were obtained from the Ministry of Health and deaths due to viral diseases (ICD-10 code: J09X, J100, J101, J108, J110, J111, J118, J120, J121, J122, J123, J128, J129 and J189) from the “Departamento de Estadísticas e Información de Salud”. For the analysis, the pre-pandemic period (2015-2019) was generated by calculating the median number of deaths and in- habitants per month and year due to viral respiratory diseases. Then, the annual overall mortality rate was calculated using as numerator the annual deaths and denominator the population of the country as of June 30 of each year. The Poisson regression model was used to compare the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods by month and year. Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR) and 95% confidence intervals are reported. Results: Between 2015-2019 there were 15081 deaths due to viral respiratory diseases and from March-2020 to August-2023 there were 53376 deaths due to COVID-19. The highest mortality due to COVID-19 was in 2020, 2021 and 2022, IRR:5.57, 7.18 and 4.07 respectively. Since 2023, the highest mortality is due to viral respiratory diseases (IRR:0.93,95%CI:0.88-0.99). Conclusion: The analysis of mortality incidences can be a useful criterion for the management of epidemics, since it is a way to approximate that the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic could be coming to an end.