Correlation: Confinements and mortality (2020)

In response to this pandemic, many countries have opted for extreme measures. General confinement was introduced with the justification of being a way to reduce transmission and, consequently, mortality from the disease (directly or through the disruption of health systems).

This measure is not included in the guidelines of WHO or CDC (USA) for combating epidemics.

It’s side effects are significant and may also have an impact on increased mortality (even in the short-medium term).

An analysis of the correlation that this type of measure has with mortality is imperative. We opted for general mortality for several reasons:

1. It includes all possible impacts – positive and negative;

2. There are differences in the detection and classification of “death by Covid” between countries;

3. There are very particular criteria in the attribution of death “by Covid”;

We also include the reference to the four seasons due to the impact they generally have on mortality associated with pandemics (although the Z-score has already incorporated it).

Many analyses have been performed using time-limited correlations or isolated cases. These partial analyses often lead to “cherry-picking”, that is, the choice of partial information to confirm a given perspective.

More than drawing conclusions for each country, we present the observation of ALL the countries -included in EuroMOMO – in terms of mortality, according to the variables (mandatory confinement, recommended confinement, absence of recommendations and seasonality).

In order to exist a standardization and an independent classification of the measures, we used the Coronavirus Government Response Tracker from the University of Oxford (Our Word in Data visualizations).

Caution note: We are looking at the correlation between variables, confinement and mortality (general). However, correlation is not necessarily causality. There are other factors that may interfere with overall mortality.

The chart corresponding to Portugal has been rectified due to an inaccuracy detected in the information retrieved from Our World in Data.

*Text written in collaboration with Eduardo Pinto Leite