How many lives did the coronavirus pandemic actually claim in Hungary?

First, take a look at this table and chart and read on if you’re interested in the findings.

Our starting point is the official mortality statistics provided by the Central Statistical Office (KSH). Here’s how the second and third waves of the coronavirus pandemic (a period between early October 2020 and end-April, early May 2021) compares with the same period of the previous years.

If we check excess mortality (also from KSH data) for the second and third waves of the coronavirus pandemic (this encompasses a 30-week period), we get 28,000 to 29,000 more deaths than in the previous years, and almost 30,000 compared to the same period in 2015-2016. Due to revisions the stats office is carrying out upwardly every week, the average will be around (more likely above) 30,000 for all the comparative periods.

Before rejoicing that these KSH figures must be correct, as the Coronavirus Task Force’s count of COVID-19 deaths is almost close to 30,000, we should take a deep breath. And while you’re taking a couple of more breaths, take a look at the charts for excess mortality data.

And two more charts depicting total deaths in 2020-2021 (from week 41 2020 to week 17 in 2021) compared to the same months of 2019-2020 and the 2015/16-2019/20 average. The top chart shows absolute numbers and the one below it the excess mortality rates per week.

And finally, a summary table for excess mortality.

And here comes the plot twist

There are two more direct excess mortality figures. 596 people for the 1st wave and 672 people for the period between 1 July and 1 October 2020. (These are the cumulated weekly differences compared to 2019.) Adding these we have 31,268 deaths, which is the result of a straightforward calculation based on the official statistics.

But here’s what is not so straightforward, yet rather obvious if we take a closer look.

There was no flu epidemic. Not at the end of spring 2020, not in the winter of 2020 and not in early 2021. A cautious estimate is that the seasonal flu epidemic would have claimed 5,820 lives last year and in 2021.

Generally, the flu costs 4,200 to 4,400 human lives on average in a year, but this is a year plus a month. 80 to 90 people die of the flu per day in a ‘normal’ year, and 110 to 120 per day in an extremely bad year. In this case, Pártos calculates with an average year, highlighting that the end-January, early February data show that the 80-90 Covid deaths and the lives not claimed by the flue largely counterbalance each other.

Hungary’s population declines by 40,000 people per annum. Regardless of what population the stats office calculates with (9.8 mn or 9.5 mn), let’s accept that 130,000 deaths on average annually translates into 1.33% mortality for the last five to ten years. This natural decrease of 40,000 (with fewer than 90,000 live births) gives us another 532 ‘deaths’ that do not appear in the official statistics.

We also need to highlight that many people did not die because of the lockdown measures. There were fewer road accidents, strokes and cardiac arrests. This has affected a lot of people, nearly 8,000 over 18 months, according to Pártos. (There was a ‘gain’ of 3,500 lives in the first half of last year already, so this is a cautious estimate.)

What is considered a gain here is a hidden loss in terms of the pandemic.

Why? Because excess mortality will exceed 30,000, and there are also those people that should have died but didn’t. Note that in late January, early February there was even mortality deficit (no flu epidemic) that was not offset even by the 80 to 100 Covid deaths per day.

We have another 14,332 indirect deaths. They are the ones that are concealed in the statistics but it’s easy to see how we got to this number which is a low estimate by the way.

Overall, deaths relating directly and indirectly to the coronavirus pandemic amount to 45,600, of which more than 40,000 occurred over the past 210 days.

The total pandemic period up to end-April or early May spans 420 days, and the 30 weeks also under review equal 210 days.

Calculating averages is easy: We divide 45,600 by 420 and 40,076 by 210, which gives us daily average deaths of 108.6 and 190.8, respectively. This means that 108.6 people died on average every day between March 2020 and early May 2021 and 190.8 died between early October and early May.

If we put the spotlight on the worst weeks in the pandemic, we get average daily excess mortality of 380, which is way north of 100% and will climb even higher. Note that the number of deaths for the 12th and 13th weeks were revised upwardly by 100 to 200 over the past two weeks alone, and the revisions are not yet over.

Let's put the data into perspective

Standalone figures may not tell the whole story, so we should put these figures into perspective. A simple tool is provided by Central Statistical Office (KSH) data (available for download here) that shows not only the number of deaths per year, but also a breakdown of the main causes of death.

Divide the annual figures by 365 and you have how many people died of what causes per day in 2019 (e.g. cancer: 87.6, cardiovascular diseases: 86.8, stroke: 31.5).

These data are shown in the table and on the chart below.

In 2019,

• 238.4 people died of serious illnesses (including road accidents and suicides!) per day, which compares with  
• 190.8 Covid deaths on a 210-day average (Oct20-Apr21)
• 379.6 Covid deaths on average on the worst weeks of the pandemic
• 259.4 deaths per day in World War 2 (excluding civilian casualties, Jewish, Romani and gay people).

Cover photo: Getty Images