Luxembourg's national statistics office, Statec, has published a report which shows that the number of deaths between January and October 2020 has been higher than that observed in recent years.
During the first ten months of 2020, Statec counted 3,601 deaths from all causes. While mortality rates have tended to decline in recent years, following the outbreak of COVID-19, the number of deaths has been higher than that recorded over the same period in 2019 (3,498 deaths, i.e. an increase of 2.9%).
Since the declaration of the first death from COVID-19 on 13 March 2020, and up to the end of October, a total of 2,739 deaths have been counted by Statec from the National Register of Natural Persons, which corresponds to more or less 180 additional deaths compared to the two previous years (2,565 deaths for this period in 2019 and 2,549 in 2018). This number coincides more or less with the 161 deaths from COVID-19 during this period.
While the number of deaths recorded in January, February, June and July 2020 is lower or comparable to that recorded on average over the last two years, a higher number of deaths was observed for the other months. Thus, in April 2020, there were 70 additional deaths compared to the 2018/2019 average.
Prior to the first death from COVID-19 (13 March 2020), mortality in 2020 followed earlier trends. Luxembourg, like many other countries, experienced lower mortality over time. This lower mortality at the start of the year is mainly due to a particularly mild winter which did not experience real flu episodes. This is especially true for the month of February and the first half of March.
The number of deaths that occurred during this period over the last three years is more or less stable: 1,072 deaths between January and mid-March 2018, 966 in 2019, and 902 in 2020.
This lower number of deaths is in part due to the fact that February 2020 (331 registered deaths) experienced lower mortality compared to previous years when this month had an extra day, with 2020 being a leap year.
There is a decrease of 26.3% compared to 2018 (449 deaths in February 2018) and 16.2% compared to the year 2019 (395 deaths in February 2019).
As the population changes from year to year, the evolution of mortality can be analysed through the mortality rate (number of deaths / average population). For the first ten months of 2020, this rate is 5.7‰, which corresponds more or less to the rate observed for the same period in 2018 (5.9 ‰) and 2019 (5.6 ‰).
Since the occurrence of the first death from COVID-19, the average number of total deaths per day has been 11.8. This number of deaths per day is higher than in 2018 and 2019: respectively 10.9 and 11.0 deaths per day on average.
