This May more than 5 thousand people died of coronavirus in Ukraine. And it is possible that at the end of the month the total number of victims will exceed 6 thousand or even exceed the worst figure of last year, when in December, according to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine (hereinafter State Statistics Service), 6205 people died of the disease
Still, such figures are much better than this March and especially April, when, according to the operative data of the Ministry of Health, 11,190 people died, which is the fourth highest figure in Europe. Ukraine lagged behind Italy by 29 and Russia by 97; the population of each country is larger (by more than three times in Russia). Poland, by far the biggest loser, with 14,256 deaths from Covid.
But do Kiev’s official figures reflect the real scale of the death toll? The question has become topical again after the other day the State Statistics Service published another demographic report, this time for March. It testified not only to the higher number of official Covid casualties but also to unfavourable phenomena in the epidemic statistics, which seemed to have recently come to naught.
Thus, earlier this year, when the epidemic had subsided and the abnormal rise in deaths that suggested a significant number of unaccounted-for Covid victims had disappeared, we had already written that the January excess death rate, when compared with the previous five-year period (2016-2020), was very small – 912 (an increase of 1.6%).
While, according to Gosstat, 3,922 people died of Covid this month. In February the excess death rate went up to 7.4% compared to the previous five-year period. But this is much less than what was observed in each of the last four months of last year. In absolute numbers, the increase was then 3,533, almost identical to the number of Covid deaths recorded that month by Gosstat (3,282). In other words, it could be assumed that the unrecorded mortality related to the epidemic was not high.
In addition, there was no difference between the operative mortality statistics, which are reported every day, and the one eventually provided by Gosstat for the respective month with a delay of about 50 days. The Gosstat figures were noticeably higher in autumn. But in December the data from the two sources were practically equal, and in January the number of victims, according to Gosstat, was 4% lower. In February, on the contrary, according to the operative statistics, the number of deaths was 8.9% lower, but the difference was still lower than in autumn months.
However, in March the situation changed significantly. Thus, according to the State Statistics Service, 8,104 people died of covidity, which is 908 (12.6%) more than according to the operational data. But most importantly, 14,633 more Ukrainians died this month than the average of March 2016-2020. In percentage terms, the increase in deaths reached 29% and compared to last year it was 34.4%. These are the worst figures in the entire epidemic except for December.
But it is the statistics by region that are the most interesting. Thus, traditionally the increase in mortality in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts is lower than the Ukrainian average, which is obviously a consequence of the fact that due to the closure of checkpoints death certificates for residents of non-government-controlled territories are much less likely to appear in the Ukrainian statistics. Incidentally, excluding the Donbas regions, the increase in mortality this March will reach 30.3% of the 2016-2020 average. Also traditionally the capital of Ukraine is in the lead in terms of increase – apparently, the reason is that Kiev is the only region that is entirely urban, and overcrowding of the population has traditionally contributed to the spread of epidemics.
And this March the death rate in Kiev was higher than in March 2016-2020 by as much as 64%. That’s 7% more than last November’s figure. But that Kiev result was also the absolute record for the entire epidemic. Now the capital of Ukraine has yielded to Zakarpattya where the increase in mortality was 69.7% in March. Two other western Ukrainian oblasts, Ivano-Frankivsk (60%) and Chernivtsi (59%), also had extremely high figures. Vinnitsa and Zhytomyr oblasts (42% and 37% respectively) also have much higher mortality rates than the national average. The oblasts of Lviv, Odessa and Khmelnitsky also outperformed the average Ukrainian indicator, but by 1-2%.
But 16 oblasts, or nearly two thirds of them, have a below-average mortality rate. Of these, only Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk, Mykolayiv, Ternopil and Kharkiv oblasts have a rate above 20%. And in the rest regions it is below 20%, in 7 regions (Volyn, Donetsk, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Kherson and Chernihiv) it is even below 15%. The record belongs to Kherson oblast with 10.6%.
As to the natural question as to whether excess mortality should be attributed to Covid, I think the answer to it is clarified by such an indicator as the share of official deaths from Covid in the total mortality in each region. In doing so, however, one has to use underreported operational statistics, as only they give the distribution of deaths by region.
Coronavirus is the cause of every ninth death (11.1%) in the country. But in Kherson oblast, for example, the figure was 4.3%, while in all other oblasts with a mortality rate under 15% it ranged from 5.7% to 9.8%.
But in regions with record growth the figures are quite different. In Ivano-Frankivsk oblast coronavirus officially accounts for 22% of deaths, in Transcarpathia 17.8%, in Kyiv 17.7% and in Chernivtsi 17%.
Yes, in all these problematic regions the number of Covid deaths is still markedly lower than the overall increase in deaths. For example, in Ivano-Frankivsk region the average death rate in March 2016-2020 was 1,527, while in 2021 it reached 2,445. That is an increase of 918, while the official number of coronavirus victims is 539, or 59% of the total increase. In the other three problematic regions the percentage is even lower (43-45%), although in two of them the abnormal increase in deaths was greater than in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.
However, no one has heard of any other disease in Kyiv or the three western Ukrainian oblasts in March that could have caused such an abnormal (59% or higher) increase in mortality. Consequently, such bizarre statistics – not only on the scale of these regions, but nationwide – can only be explained by underestimation of real mortality associated with the coronavirus.
And since the epidemic peaked in Ukraine in April, the most shocking figures will emerge in a month’s time.
Peter Safonov, Ukraina.ru