Excess mortality, an immediate consequence of the health crisis, is confirmed in the country.
The “record” of mortality over a calendar year in France, established in 2019, is already exceeded on December 7, according to provisional data updated Friday on the INSEE website.
[2/2 Update of the number of # deaths] Number of daily deaths in 2020 compared to the last five years (2015-2019) #dataviz ➡️ https://t.co/CsMgstXznC pic.twitter.com/Z1LFzxnPFt
- Insee (@InseeFr) December 18, 2020
"Between January 1 and December 7, 617,197 deaths occurred in 2020," says the National Statistics Institute, which had identified 613,243 for the whole of 2019, a record since the post-war period in due to the growth and aging of the population.
The elderly pay the heaviest price
As of December 7, 46,703 more deaths than last year on the same date were recorded.
This excess mortality is mainly linked to the virus, which has killed 59,619 people since March, according to the latest official figures released Thursday by Public Health France.
The recent trend, however, was lull: after the peak of the second epidemic wave reached on November 7, the daily number of deaths continued to decline during the first week of December, even though 13% remained above the figures recorded last year at the same period, according to INSEE.
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The elderly pay the heaviest price, with excess mortality since September of around 20% for those over 85, 18% for those aged 75-84 and 14% for those aged 65-74, while deaths among young people under 25 are down 9% compared to last year.
