COVID-19 Waves: Importance of Accumulative Mortality per Million Inhabitants

Perspective

COVID-19 Waves: Importance of Accumulative Mortality per Million Inhabitants

CARLOS A. DELGADO,^1,2 ROBERTO L. SHIMABUKU¹ and PAMELA M. CHIROQUE-SOLANO³

¹Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Perteú
²Instituto Nacional de Salud del Niño, Lima, Perú
³Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The reported number of new cases underestimates the real spread of COVID-19 pandemic because of non-tested asymptomatic people and limited global access to reliable diagnostic tests. In this context, COVID-19 mortality with confirmed diagnosis becomes an attractive source of information to be included in the analysis of perspectives and proposals. Objective data are required to calculate the capacity of resources provided by health systems. New strategies are needed to stabilize or minimize the mortality surge. However, we will not afford this goal until more alternatives were available. We still need an effective treatment, an affordable vaccine, or a collective achievement of sufficient immunity (reaching up to 70% of the whole population). At any time, the arriving waves of the pandemic are testing the capacity of governments. The health services struggle to keep the plateau in a steady-state below 100 deaths per million inhabitants. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the alternatives and supplies based on the current and near-future expected demands imposed by the number of deaths by COVID-19. Estimating COVID-19 mortality in various scenarios with the gradual release of social constraints will help predict the magnitude of those arriving waves.

Keywords —— COVID-19; mortality; pandemics; public health; registries

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2020, 251, 47-49

Correspondence: Roberto L. Shimabuku, M.D., Ph.D., Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Av. Grau 700, Lima 1, Perú.

e-mail: rshimabukua@unmsm.edu.pe