Open AccessHuge Excess Mortality Due to the Delta Strain of COVID-19 in Japan in August 2021
Author(s) -
Junko Kurita,
Tamie Sugawara,
Yasushi Ohkusa,
AUTHOR_ID,
AUTHOR_ID
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of disaster research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.332
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1883-8030
pISSN - 1881-2473
DOI - 10.20965/jdr.2022.p0057
Subject(s) - covid-19 , excess mortality , outbreak , delta , strain (injury) , demography , virology , medicine , mortality rate , infectious disease (medical specialty) , disease , sociology , engineering , aerospace engineering
Background: No remarkable excess mortality attributable to COVID-19 has been observed in Japan until the delta strain of COVID-19 emerged. Object: We sought to quantify high pathogenicity of the delta strain using the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) model. Method: We applied the NIID model to deaths of all causes from 1987 up through August 2021 for the whole of Japan. Results: Results in Japan show 4105 excess mortality in August 2021 in Japan. It was estimated as 3.8% of the baseline. Discussion and Conclusion: We found substantial excess mortality since the outbreak of COVID-19 had emerged in August 2021, in Japan. It might be due to spread of delta strain at that time.