What Explains 30% Excess Mortality in Iceland in Q1 2022?
January to March 2022 760 people died in Iceland, a sharp increase of 30% compared with the previous year. Excess mortality against the average for the past five years before 2022 in the first quarter is 28%. Chief epidemiologist Thorolfur Gudnason, who recently fell seriously ill with Covid-19 despite triple vaccination, which according to him provides excellent protection against serious illness, says Covid may explain this increase. However, as 64 people have died with Covid-19 since the start of the year this might explain at most a third of the increase, as it is unknown what proportion of the 64 deceased actually died from Covid rather than from other causes, but diagnosed with Covid as well. Two deaths following vaccination were reported in the first quarter, but what proportion of actual vaccine injuries is in fact reported is unclear.
What, then, explains deaths jumping from an average of 592 over the previous five years, fluctuating between a minimum of 560 and a maximum of 620, to 760 in 2022, a 30% increase?
The explanation for most of those excess deaths is clearly not Covid-19 and the breakdown of deaths by cause is not yet available. Judging from weekly data available it seems the bulk of the excess mortality was among the over-70s. Mass-vaccination was mostly over by fall 2021, but last December and January about a third of the population, predominantly people middle-aged and older, got their third dose of Covid-19 vaccine. By the end of March, the media reported a rapid rise in influenza infections, but this can hardly be a contributing factor with only 10 hospitalisations reported and no death.
What remains is an unprecedented surge in excess mortality in the first quarter of 2022, a third of which at most may be attributed to Covid-19. The rest remains unexplained and the only notable health-related event that took place was booster vaccination of a third of the population. In many other countries mortality was back to normal in 2022, but then, the booster campaingns were over earlier than in Iceland.
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