ArticleJournal of global health2025
Comparison of excess deaths and laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 deaths during a large Omicron epidemic in 2022 in Hong Kong.
Article in Journal of global health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- Estimating changes in life expectancy in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal ecological study.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Background: Using an elimination strategy, Hong Kong was able to minimise COVID-19 mortality in 2020 and 2021, but a large epidemic caused by the Omicron variant occurred in 2022. We aimed to estimate the overall, age-, sex-, epidemic period- and cause-specific excess mortality in 2022 in Hong Kong and compare excess mortality to laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 mortality. Methods: We used negative binomial regression analysis to model time series of weekly all-cause and cause-specific deaths from 2010 to 2021 to predict the weekly number of deaths in 2022 against counterfactual baselines projected from the trends in the absence of a pandemic. The estimated excess deaths were compared with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 deaths overall and by age and epidemic period. Results: We estimated that there were 13 500 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 13 400, 13 600) excess deaths in 2022, which was slightly higher than the 12 228 deaths recorded with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, with the majority of the excess deaths and laboratory-confirmed deaths occurring among older adults. The increased number of excess deaths over laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 deaths was most substantial from February to April 2022 (a difference of 847 deaths), when the most prominent Omicron wave peaked. Most of the excess deaths (78%) were from respiratory causes, while 10% were from cardiovascular causes. A slight reduction in malignant neoplasm mortality was identified among older adults in 2022. Conclusions: A substantial increase in population mortality was identified in 2022 in Hong Kong, slightly larger than the laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 deaths. Deaths from COVID-19 may have displaced some deaths that would otherwise have occurred due to other causes.
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