ArticleEuro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin2022
COVID-19 mortality, excess mortality, deaths per million and infection fatality ratio, Belgium, 9 March 2020 to 28 June 2020.
Article in Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A scoping review of COVID-19 modelling studies in Belgium 2020-2024: incorporation of behaviour and lessons learned.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Pooled it
- Burden of infectious disease studies in Europe and the United Kingdom: a review of methodological design choices.Epidemiology and infection · 2023Pooled it
- Estimating the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections by jointly modelling seroprevalence, hospitalization and mortality data, February 2020 - January 2021, Belgium.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Article
- Dynamics of psychological distress: understanding the impact of intraindividual and interindividual factors in the Belgian population during the COVID-19 pandemic-a multilevel prospective cohort study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Evaluating the COVID-19 responses of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, February-June 2020: a counterfactual modeling study.BMC medicine · 2025Article
- Unraveling the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mortality trends in Belgium between 2020-2022.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Review
- The Influence of Changes in Daily Life Habits and Well-Being on Fatigue Level During COVID-19 Pandemic.Psychologica Belgica · 2024Article
- Social health gradient and risk factors among patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and pre-pandemic respiratory infections. A linked national individual case-control study in Belgium.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Exploring the impact of population ageing on the spread of emerging respiratory infections and the associated burden of mortality.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Executive Summary to the Royal Society report "COVID-19: examining the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions".Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2023Article
- The direct disease burden of COVID-19 in Belgium in 2020 and 2021.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Age-specific severity of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in February 2020 to June 2021 in the Netherlands.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2023Article
- Post COVID-19 condition and health-related quality of life: a longitudinal cohort study in the Belgian adult population.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Social inequalities and long-term health impact of COVID-19 in Belgium: protocol of the HELICON population data linkage.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Fractal dimension based geographical clustering of COVID-19 time series data.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and retrospective mortality in two African settings: Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
- Association of burnout and intention-to-leave the profession with work environment: A nationwide cross-sectional study among Belgian intensive care nurses after two years of pandemic.International journal of nursing studies · 2023Article
- Age-specific SARS-CoV-2 infection fatality rates derived from serological data vary with income and income inequality.PloS one · 2023Article
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17 authors.
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Abstract
BackgroundCOVID-19 mortality, excess mortality, deaths per million population (DPM), infection fatality ratio (IFR) and case fatality ratio (CFR) are reported and compared for many countries globally. These measures may appear objective, however, they should be interpreted with caution.AimWe examined reported COVID-19-related mortality in Belgium from 9 March 2020 to 28 June 2020, placing it against the background of excess mortality and compared the DPM and IFR between countries and within subgroups.MethodsThe relation between COVID-19-related mortality and excess mortality was evaluated by comparing COVID-19 mortality and the difference between observed and weekly average predictions of all-cause mortality. DPM were evaluated using demographic data of the Belgian population. The number of infections was estimated by a stochastic compartmental model. The IFR was estimated using a delay distribution between infection and death.ResultsIn the study period, 9,621 COVID-19-related deaths were reported, which is close to the excess mortality estimated using weekly averages (8,985 deaths). This translates to 837 DPM and an IFR of 1.5% in the general population. Both DPM and IFR increase with age and are substantially larger in the nursing home population.DiscussionDuring the first pandemic wave, Belgium had no discrepancy between COVID-19-related mortality and excess mortality. In light of this close agreement, it is useful to consider the DPM and IFR, which are both age, sex, and nursing home population-dependent. Comparison of COVID-19 mortality between countries should rather be based on excess mortality than on COVID-19-related mortality.
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