ArticleERJ open research2020
Magnitude and time-course of excess mortality during COVID-19 outbreak: population-based empirical evidence from highly impacted provinces in northern Italy.
Article in ERJ open research, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cervical cancer: A systematic review of the impact of COVID-19 on patient care.Preventive medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) excess mortality outcomes associated with pandemic effects study (COPES): A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Changes in youth public psychiatric service utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: an observational study.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mortality Rates From Non-Communicable Chronic Diseases in Taiwan: An Interventional Time Series Study.International journal of public health · 2025Article
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- Impact of the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Pediatric Emergency Department Attendance in a Tertiary Center in South Italy: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Bayesian profile regression to study the ecologic associations of correlated environmental exposures with excess mortality risk during the first year of the Covid-19 epidemic in lombardy, Italy.Environmental research · 2023Article
- Azithromycin use and outcomes in patients with COVID-19: an observational real-world study.International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases · 2022Observational
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- Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer's Tumor Burden and Care: a Multi-Center Study Based in Northern Italy.Journal of plastic, reconstructive & aesthetic surgery : JPRAS · 2022Article
- The effect of laboratory-verified smoking on SARS-CoV-2 infection: results from the Troina sero-epidemiological survey.Internal and emergency medicine · 2022Article
- Estimation of Excess All-Cause Mortality Due to COVID-19 in Thailand.Tropical medicine and infectious disease · 2022Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Total and Cause-Specific Mortality in Pavia, Northern Italy.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- The impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the Transfusion Medicine Unit of a Northern Italy Hospital and Cancer Centre.Vox sanguinis · 2022Article
- Antidepressants Drug Use during COVID-19 Waves in the Tuscan General Population: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Article
- 3Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene · 2022Article
- Analysis of the impact of coronavirus disease 19 on hospitalization rates for chronic non-communicable diseases in Brazil.PloS one · 2022Article
- Incidence of De Quervain's thyroiditis during the COVID-19 pandemic in an area heavily affected by Sars-CoV-2 infection.Endocrine · 2021Article
- Article
- Outcomes of non-COVID-19 critically ill patients during the COVID-19 pandemic : A retrospective propensity score-matched analysis.Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe real impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on overall mortality remains uncertain as surveillance reports have attributed a limited number of deaths to novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) during the outbreak. The aim of this study was to assess the excess mortality during the COVID-19 outbreak in highly impacted areas of northern Italy.
methodsWe analysed data on deaths that occurred in the first 4 months of 2020 provided by the health protection agencies (HPAs) of Bergamo and Brescia (Lombardy), building a time-series of daily number of deaths and predicting the daily standardised mortality ratio (SMR) and cumulative number of excess deaths through a Poisson generalised additive model of the observed counts in 2020, using 2019 data as a reference.
resultsWe estimated that there were 5740 (95% credible set (CS) 5552-5936) excess deaths in the HPA of Bergamo and 3703 (95% CS 3535-3877) in Brescia, corresponding to a 2.55-fold (95% CS 2.50-2.61) and 1.93 (95% CS 1.89-1.98) increase in the number of deaths. The excess death wave started a few days later in Brescia, but the daily estimated SMR peaked at the end of March in both HPAs, roughly 2 weeks after the introduction of lockdown measures, with significantly higher estimates in Bergamo (9.4, 95% CI 9.1-9.7).
conclusionExcess mortality was significantly higher than that officially attributed to COVID-19, disclosing its hidden burden likely due to indirect effects on the health system. Time-series analyses highlighted the impact of lockdown restrictions, with a lower excess mortality in the HPA where there was a smaller delay between the epidemic outbreak and their enforcement.
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