Philippines Summary Of The 2021 Registered Deaths, Excess Mortality, And Covid-19 Deaths; Overall And By Region Is Provided.

The 2021 by region data is updated with the 13 August 22 PSA All Cause Mortality release, and the DOH Covid-19 deaths as of 30 July 2022. To date excess deaths in 2021 stand at 37.2% above forecast.

This is the conclusion of my recent study summarizing and presenting the excess mortality across the Philippines in 2021. This heart-rending activities brings home the abnormalities and tragedy of the past 2 1/2 years. No area has been spared!

The data presented will next be updated in January 2023 when the final data for 2021 is released; deaths in all regions are expected to increase further in the final reckoning. Age breakdown of deaths is not yet released, and is expected to be included in the January 2023 release. I do not know what the expected capture of registered vital statistics is in the Philippines, and will refer that question to the Philippines Statistics Office (PSA) with an FOI request. Certainly submission of vital statistics to the PSA can be very delayed; it also depends on data capture and transfer from regional offices.

The source materials are all official government and public domain data. They can be found online at PSA (latest death data release at 13 August 2022) and the DOH Covid-19 Tracker (latest Covid-19 death data at 30 July 2022) websites. I computed the forecast for expected 2021 deaths using 5-year historical all cause mortality from 2015 to 2019, and the excel forecast tool. 2020 was excluded from the forecast historical data set because it was the first year of the pandemic and overall deaths in the Philippines, and in all provinces, except BARMM where deaths were high, were below expected levels.

The table summarizes key data: population of each region, registered, forecast and excess deaths, excess deaths as % of the forecast deaths, and deaths reported as due to Covid-19. A breakdown of each region’s share of the population as opposed to their share of Covid-19 deaths is provided in the last columns. There was great variability in Covid-19 deaths relative to population share across regions (-5% to +6.2%). Generally, more industrialized regions had a greater burden (% share of Covid-19 deaths), in red. Other regions (green) had lower rates of covid-19 deaths relative to their population share. Still others (black) had Covid-19 reported deaths showing 1% or less variation from their share of the population.

Assuming overall health status and genetic susceptibility to dying from Covid-19 were relatively stable across the entire population of the Philippines and that the spread of Covid-19 was ubiquitous (validity of these assumptions could be questioned), this raises questions on why there was such great variability in reported deaths across provinces. Could it be reporting methodologies, with perhaps policies on reporting deaths with rather than necessarily from Covid-19 be at play? Was basic population health worse in more urbanized centers? Did medical management of cases, with more medical access in urbanized areas, affect death rates? These questions without answers need investigation by population and medical experts.

I have provided a summary figure for the Philippines overall, and for each of the Philippines 17 Administrative Region. Each figures shows the monthly patterns of death since 2015. The heading states the % of excess deaths above the forecast deaths, and the total number of excess deaths. I have indicated how many new deaths have been included since the prior data release from PSA which was as of 28 Feb 2022, released on 12 April 2022.

The lines show historical registered deaths from 2015 up to 2021.

Please view this data with an eye towards questioning the patterns of deaths seen for 2020 where death spikes were apparent in some regions, but not others, and the ubiquitous excess deaths in 2021. There were some spikes in deaths in 2020 in some regions, but no overall excess deaths in 2020 in the Philippines in the first year of the pandemic.

There were very high levels of excess deaths in 2021? There were no major natural disasters, or wars in 2021! When did these excess deaths start? Were there particular months when deaths suddenly spike or dip? Was anything specific happening in those months? The numbers of reported Covid-19 deaths cannot explain the observed magnitude of excess deaths. Please study with a thought for all the lives lost, all the families that were bereaved, to have contributed to this data.

These data are now summarized by province.

Breakdown by provinces may be referred to my posts over the past few weeks. Although only the last 3 regions (and their provinces in that series) were updated with the 13 August 2022 release, the increases in registered deaths were not big enough to change the overall patterns of deaths in each region! I will prepare final updates next January 2023.

This data is provided free for sharing as my readers see fit. Please share and ask questions! Historically, a 10% excess deaths is considered exceptional. We have excess deaths ranging from 16% to 91%! We do need answers!

May God Bless and Keep You All!