Weekly/monthly mortality 2015–2021

This repository contains country-level data on all-cause mortality collected from various sources, see below. Please note:

• Our aim is to provide data from 2015 onwards. In some cases the coverage starts later, but we require at least full 2019 data.
• Countries are only included if the data exist until at least June 2020.
• We only collect weekly, monthly, or quarterly data.
• We only provide all-cause mortality numbers, without splitting by age or gender.
• We only provide country-level data, without splitting it by regions or individual cities.
• The Short Term Mortality Fluctuations (STMF) dataset from the Human Mortality Database (HMD) is integrated into this dataset. See the STMF dataset for mortality by age and gender; here we only provide the total numbers.
• The data for the European countries that are not in STMF are sourced from the EuroStat.
• Weekly data mostly follow ISO8601 standard, when weeks are calendar weeks, Monday to Sunday, and the weeks on the year boundaries are assigned to the year in which they have more days (four or more). Most years have 52 weeks but some years, such as 2015 and 2020, have 53 weeks. Some countries provide weekly data starting weeks from January 1st, irrespective of the week day. This is specified in the data table. FIX THIS
• Some countries publish incomplete weekly data for most recent weeks, which shows as large "dips" in the end of the time series. We omit these data points for the following countries: Finland, Norway, South Korea, United States.

We are currently providing data for 68 countries. We welcome any contributions.

If you use this dataset, please cite this repository. Publication is upcoming.

Sources

Human Mortality Database, Short-Term Mortality Flucations

We collect the weekly STMF data for the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom (England & Wales + Northern Ireland + Scotland), United States.

We do not use Taiwan data from STMF because the monthly data (see below) is more frequently updated.

United States data from 2017 onwards are replaced with CDC 'predictions' that account for underreporting in recent weeks (see below).

For some European countries, STMF sometimes has more up-to-date (and backward revised) data than Eurostat, as it culls data from countries' NSOs. For each data point that exists in both datasets, we take the maximum between them as the final data.

Eurostat

We collect the weekly data from Eurostat for the following countries: Albania, Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia, Liechtenstein, Malta, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia.

Azerbaijan (monthly)

2015 to 2017: http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=POP&f=tableCode%3a65%3bcountryCode%3a31&c=2,3,6,8,10,12,13,14&s=_countryEnglishNameOrderBy:asc,refYear:desc,areaCode:asc&v=12018: https://www.stat.gov.az/news/source/2019_12ay.zip 2019 to 2020: https://www.stat.gov.az/news/source/2020_11ay.zip

Belarus (monthly)

2015 to 2020: http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=POP&f=tableCode%3a65%3bcountryCode%3a112%3brefYear%3a2015%2c2016%2c2017%2c2018%2c2019%2c2020&c=2,3,6,8,10,12,13,14&s=_countryEnglishNameOrderBy:asc,refYear:desc,areaCode:asc&v=1

Bolivia (monthly)

New York Times: https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data/tree/master/excess-deaths

NYT obtained these data directly from the Bolivian officials. Note that the data for April 2020 are missing. To quote NYT, "Bolivia’s Civil Registry recorded almost no deaths in April due to the closure of government offices during a lockdown. Officials said [at] least some of the deaths that occurred in April could have been registered in later months." In their analysis, NYT implicitly assumes that the excess mortality in April was zero.

Note also that the value for September 2020 is missing in the data file and was approximated from the NYT graphics.

Bosnia (monthly)

Agency for Statistics of Bosnia & Herzegovina Natural Population Change Quarterly: http://www.bhas.ba/Calendar/Category/14#tab-releases

Brazil (monthly)

2015 to 2017: UNData - http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=POP&f=tableCode%3a65%3bcountryCode%3a76%3brefYear%3a2015%2c2016%2c2017&c=2,3,6,8,10,12,13,14&s=_countryEnglishNameOrderBy:asc,refYear:desc,areaCode:asc&v=1 2019 to 2020: Brazilian Population Registry: https://transparencia.registrocivil.org.br/registros

Note: The Brazilian Population Registry has data for monthly mortality in 2018, but it is significantly lower than UNData counts for previous years. This is possibly due to under-reporting in the Registry in early years. We chose not to include 2018 Brazilian currently.

Colombia (weekly)

https://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/estadisticas-por-tema/demografia-y-poblacion/informe-de-seguimiento-defunciones-por-covid-19Direct link to the latest table in XLS (November 2020): https://www.dane.gov.co/files/investigaciones/poblacion/defunciones-covid19/anexos-defunciones-covid-nal-2020-02mar-01nov.xlsx.Here we sum values in three categories: Natural, Violenta, and En estudio (unclassified deaths).

Ecuador (weekly)

2017: https://www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/nacimientos-y-defunciones-2017/2018: https://www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/category/poblacion-y-demografia/2019: https://www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/defunciones-generales-2019/2020: https://www.registrocivil.gob.ec/cifrasdefuncion/Direct link to the latest table in XLS (January 2021):https://www.registrocivil.gob.ec/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2021/01/Defunciones_Generales_2020_act_03_ENE_2021.xlsx

Ecuador provides daily death counts. We summed them up to form weekly death counts.

Egypt (monthly)

2015 to 2019: http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=POP&f=tableCode%3a65%3bcountryCode%3a818&c=2,3,6,8,10,12,13,14&s=_countryEnglishNameOrderBy:asc,refYear:desc,areaCode:asc&v=12020: Monthly Bulletin of the Egyptian NSO (CAPMAS): https://www.capmas.gov.eg/Pages/Publications.aspx?page_id=5107&Year=23518

Hong Kong (monthly)

Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department: 2015 to 2018: https://www.censtatd.gov.hk/hkstat/sub/sp160.jsp?productCode=FA1000942019 to 2020: Hong Kong Monthly Digest of Statistics, https://www.censtatd.gov.hk/hkstat/sub/sp110.jsp?productCode=B1010002

Iran (quarterly)

Iran National Organization for Civil Registration: https://www.sabteahval.ir/avej/Page.aspx?mId=49826&ID=2182&Page=Magazines/SquareshowMagazineThe data are provided in Solar Hirji seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter). Winter starts on Dec 22, so we count it as the next calendar year (e.g. Winter 1393 as the first entry for 2015).

Ireland (quarterly)

Ireland Central Statistics Office: https://data.cso.ie/table/VSQ01

Japan (monthly)

Japanese Government Statistics Portal: https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00450011&kikan=00450&tstat=000001028897&cycle=1&tclass1=000001053058&tclass2=000001053059&tclass3val=0

Malaysia (quarterly)

Department of Statistics Malaysia:

2016: https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/index.php?r=column/cthemeByCat&cat=430&bul_id=NHRXOUdiT0R0ZjZ0cy90elNUTHFsdz09&menu_id=L0pheU43NWJwRWVSZklWdzQ4TlhUUT09

2017 onward: https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/index.php?r=column/cthemeByCat&cat=430&bul_id=YUttRnlGZ2VXSkg0M0F2ZHZFTE9IUT09&menu_id=L0pheU43NWJwRWVSZklWdzQ4TlhUUT09

Mexico (weekly)

Mexican Ministry of Health Excess deaths: https://coronavirus.gob.mx/exceso-de-mortalidad-en-mexico/

The Mexican Ministry of Health does not publish weekly data for years before 2020. Instead, the 2015--2018 data were used by the Mexican Ministry of Health to forecast expected weekly mortality. We provide this forecast here as if it were the 2018 data, to make it easier for the analysis scripts.

Moldova (monthly)

2015 to 2020: UNData: http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=POP&f=tableCode:65;countryCode:498&c=2,3,6,8,10,12,13,14&s=_countryEnglishNameOrderBy:asc,refYear:desc,areaCode:asc&v=1

2020: UNData MBS (as crude death rates): https://unstats.un.org/unsd/mbs/app/DataView.aspx?tid=3&cid=498&yearfrom=2015&yearto=2020&p=ACrude death rates were transformed to mortality counts by using the UNDATA Mid-Year Population estimate for Moldova 2020 which is 2,640,000.

Mongolia (monthly)

2015: UNData: http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=POP&f=tableCode%3a65%3bcountryCode%3a496%3brefYear%3a2015&c=2,3,6,8,10,12,13,14&s=_countryEnglishNameOrderBy:asc,refYear:desc,areaCode:asc&v=1

2016 to 2020: Mongolian Statistical Information Service: http://www.1212.mn/tables.aspx?tbl_id=DT_NSO_2100_027V2&SOUM_select_all=0&SOUMSingleSelect=_0&YearM_select_all=0&YearMSingleSelect=_202011_202010_202009_202008_202007_202006_202005_202004_202003_202002_202001_202012&viewtype=table

Peru (weekly)

Peruvian Ministry of Health - National Deaths Registration System (SINADEF): https://www.minsa.gob.pe/reunis/data/defunciones_registradas.asp

Peru provides daily death counts. We summed them up to form weekly death counts.

Philippines (monthly)

Philippines Statistics Authority: https://psa.gov.ph/vital-statistics/table

Russia (monthly)

https://www.fedstat.ru/indicator/33556 (data available from 2006)The latest month is published on rosstat.gov.ru first and it takes several days for the data to appear on fedstat.ru. The exact URL is always different. For November 2020, the URL is https://rosstat.gov.ru/storage/mediabank/ldMWepjj/edn11-2020.htm.

Singapore (monthly)

Department of Statistics Singapore: https://www.tablebuilder.singstat.gov.sg/publicfacing/createDataTable.action?refId=15167

South Africa (weekly)

South Africa Medical Research Council (SARMC): https://www.samrc.ac.za/reports/report-weekly-deaths-south-africa

SAMRC does not publish weekly data for years before 2020. Instead, the 2018--2019 data were used by SAMRC to forecast expected weekly mortality using the Excel forecast function. We provide this forecast here as if it were the 2019 data, to make it easier for the analysis scripts.

Taiwan (monthly)

Taiwan Ministry of the Interior Monthly Bulletin of Interior Statistics: https://www.moi.gov.tw/files/site_stuff/321/1/month/month_en.html

Taiwan also has weekly data from STMF, but it is less updated, so we opted to keep the monthly data for now.

Thailand (monthly)

Official Statistics Registration Systems: https://stat.bora.dopa.go.th/stat/statnew/statMenu/newStat/home.php

Tunisia (monthly)

Tunisia National Institute of statistics Monthly Bulletin: http://www.ins.tn/en/publication/statistics-monthly-bulletin-november-2020

Ukraine (monthly)

2014 to 2018: http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=POP&f=tableCode%3a65%3bcountryCode%3a804&c=2,3,6,8,10,12,13,14&s=_countryEnglishNameOrderBy:asc,refYear:desc,areaCode:asc&v=1

2020: State Statistics Office of Ukraine: http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/ Access by: Statistical Information -> Population and migration -> Number of live births, deaths, by region

2019 data can be found following links from http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/express/expr2020/expres_2020.html

United States (weekly)

2015--2016: STMF, see above.From 2017: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: https://data.cdc.gov/api/views/xkkf-xrst/rows.csvWe use the 'predicted' (weighted) time series that accounts for underreporting in recent weeks. See https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm for more information.We remove the last weeks (usually two) that are marked at https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html as being <90% complete.

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Currently unused sources

Below are listed some sources that are currently not used for this dataset.

Armenia (monthly)

The monthly numbers for Armenia are not used because we prefer the weekly numbers from EuroStat.

2015: https://www.armstat.am/file/article/sv_12_15r_520.pdf2016: https://www.armstat.am/file/article/sv_12_16r_520.pdf2017: https://www.armstat.am/file/article/sv_12_17r_520.pdf2018: https://www.armstat.am/file/article/sv_12_18r_520.pdf2019: https://www.armstat.am/file/article/sv_12_19r_520.pdf2020: https://www.armstat.am/file/article/sv_10_20r_520.pdf

Georgia (monthly)

The monthly numbers for Georgia are not used because we prefer the weekly numbers from EuroStat.

2015--19: https://www.geostat.ge/media/34261/დემოგრაფიული-ვითარება-საქართველოში-2019.pdf, page 672020: https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/83781/posts/45084 (values digitized from an official plot)

Romania (monthly)

The monthly numbers for Romania are not used because we prefer the weekly numbers from EuroStat.

National Institute of Statistics: https://insse.ro/cms/en/comunicate-de-presa-view?field_categorie_value_i18n%5B%5D=15&created=8&field_cuvinte_cheie_value=&items_per_page=10

Serbia (monthly)

The monthly numbers for Serbia are not used because we prefer the weekly numbers from EuroStat.

Statistical Office of the Rebublic of Serbia: https://www.stat.gov.rs/en-us/oblasti/stanovnistvo/rodjeni-i-umrli/