A reference for mortality in Spain from 2001 to 2019 records with an accurate estimate of excess deaths during the 2020 spring covid-19 outbreak

Martin-Olalla, J. M.

Spanish official records of mortality and population in the 21st century are analyzed to determine the reference value of all cause, all age, all sex per capita death rate in the country. This reference is used to analyze the mortality in 2020, largely influenced by a massive anomaly in spring due to covid-19. The most probable mortality excess from Monday March 2 to Sunday May 24, 2020 ---W10 to W21--- is 1055{+/-}15 deaths per one million population or 49940{+/-}730 total deaths. Standard deviation is 67 deaths per one million population. The excess amounts to 53% relative to the expected number of deaths from 21st century records and yields a z-score z=16 ---extremely high excess, according to EuroMoMo classification scheme. Taking into account nationwide seroprevalence(Pollan 2020) that is an upper bound of the infection fatality rate of 2.1%.