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Mortality of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Sweden in Relation to Previous Severe Disease Outbreaks

Influenza viruses have caused disease outbreaks in human societies for a long time. Influenza often has rapid onset and relatively short duration, both in the individual and in the population. The case fatality rate varies for different strains of the virus, as do the effects on total mortality. Out...

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Autor principal: Ledberg, Anders
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7930003/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33681118
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.579948
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author Ledberg, Anders
author_facet Ledberg, Anders
author_sort Ledberg, Anders
collection PubMed
description Influenza viruses have caused disease outbreaks in human societies for a long time. Influenza often has rapid onset and relatively short duration, both in the individual and in the population. The case fatality rate varies for different strains of the virus, as do the effects on total mortality. Outbreaks related to coronavirus infections have recently become a global concern but much less is known about the dynamics of these outbreaks and their effects on mortality. In this work, disease outbreaks in Sweden, in the time period of 1860–2020, are characterized and compared to the currently ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. The focus is on outbreaks with a sharp increase in all-cause mortality. Outbreak onset is defined as the time point when death counts start to increase consistently for a period of at least 10 days. The duration of the outbreak is defined as the time period in which mortality rates are elevated. Excess mortality is estimated by standard methods. In total there were 15 outbreaks detected in the time period, the first 14 were likely caused by influenza virus infections, the last by SARS-CoV-2. The mortality dynamics of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak is shown to be similar to outbreaks due to influenza virus, and in terms of the number of excess deaths, it is the worst outbreak in Sweden since the “Spanish flu” of 1918–1919.
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spelling pubmed-79300032021-03-05 Mortality of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Sweden in Relation to Previous Severe Disease Outbreaks Ledberg, Anders Front Public Health Public Health Influenza viruses have caused disease outbreaks in human societies for a long time. Influenza often has rapid onset and relatively short duration, both in the individual and in the population. The case fatality rate varies for different strains of the virus, as do the effects on total mortality. Outbreaks related to coronavirus infections have recently become a global concern but much less is known about the dynamics of these outbreaks and their effects on mortality. In this work, disease outbreaks in Sweden, in the time period of 1860–2020, are characterized and compared to the currently ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. The focus is on outbreaks with a sharp increase in all-cause mortality. Outbreak onset is defined as the time point when death counts start to increase consistently for a period of at least 10 days. The duration of the outbreak is defined as the time period in which mortality rates are elevated. Excess mortality is estimated by standard methods. In total there were 15 outbreaks detected in the time period, the first 14 were likely caused by influenza virus infections, the last by SARS-CoV-2. The mortality dynamics of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak is shown to be similar to outbreaks due to influenza virus, and in terms of the number of excess deaths, it is the worst outbreak in Sweden since the “Spanish flu” of 1918–1919. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-02-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7930003/ /pubmed/33681118 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.579948 Text en Copyright © 2021 Ledberg. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Ledberg, Anders
Mortality of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Sweden in Relation to Previous Severe Disease Outbreaks
title Mortality of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Sweden in Relation to Previous Severe Disease Outbreaks
title_full Mortality of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Sweden in Relation to Previous Severe Disease Outbreaks
title_fullStr Mortality of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Sweden in Relation to Previous Severe Disease Outbreaks
title_full_unstemmed Mortality of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Sweden in Relation to Previous Severe Disease Outbreaks
title_short Mortality of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Sweden in Relation to Previous Severe Disease Outbreaks
title_sort mortality of the covid-19 outbreak in sweden in relation to previous severe disease outbreaks
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7930003/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33681118
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.579948
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