Direct and indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality in Switzerland

COVID-19-releated public health measures may have indirectly impacted mortality rates by causing or averting deaths. Here, the authors use data from Switzerland until April 2022 and estimate that, after accounting for deaths directly related to COVID-19, mortality was lower than expected, indicating some evidence of an overall positive impact of control measures. The direct and indirect impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on population-level mortality is of concern to public health but challenging to quantify. Using data for 2011-2019, we applied Bayesian models to predict the expected number of deaths in Switzerland and compared them with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 deaths from February 2020 to April 2022 (study period). We estimated that COVID-19-related mortality was underestimated by a factor of 0.72 (95% credible interval [CrI]: 0.46-0.78). After accounting for COVID-19 deaths, the observed mortality was -4% (95% CrI: -8 to 0) lower than expected. The deficit in mortality was concentrated in age groups 40-59 (-12%, 95%CrI: -19 to -5) and 60-69 (-8%, 95%CrI: -15 to -2). Although COVID-19 control measures may have negative effects, after subtracting COVID-19 deaths, there were fewer deaths in Switzerland during the pandemic than expected, suggesting that any negative effects of control measures were offset by the positive effects. These results have important implications for the ongoing debate about the appropriateness of COVID-19 control measures.

Automated summary

The study estimates that after accounting for deaths directly related to COVID-19, mortality in Switzerland was lower than expected, suggesting a positive impact of control measures.