TY - JOUR AU - van Asten, Liselotte AU - Harmsen, Carel AU - Stoeldraijer, Lenny AU - Klinkenberg, Don AU - Teirlinck, Anne AU - de Lange, Marit M.A. AU - Meijer, Adam AU - van de Kassteele, Jan AU - van Gageldonk-Lafeber, Arianne AU - van den Hof, Susan AU - van der Hoek, Wim T1 - Excess Deaths during Influenza and Coronavirus Disease and Infection-Fatality Rate for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, the Netherlands T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2021 VL - 27 IS - 2 SP - 411 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Since the 2009 influenza pandemic, the Netherlands has used a weekly death monitoring system to estimate deaths in excess of expectations. We present estimates of excess deaths during the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic and 10 previous influenza epidemics. Excess deaths per influenza epidemic averaged 4,000. The estimated 9,554 excess deaths (41% in excess) during the COVID-19 epidemic weeks 12–19 of 2020 appeared comparable to the 9,373 excess deaths (18%) during the severe influenza epidemic of 2017–18. However, these deaths occurred in a shorter time, had a higher peak, and were mitigated by nonpharmaceutical control measures. Excess deaths were 1.8-fold higher than reported laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 deaths (5,449). Based on excess deaths and preliminary results from seroepidemiologic studies, we estimated the infection-fatality rate to be 1%. Monitoring of excess deaths is crucial for timely estimates of disease burden for influenza and COVID-19. Our data complement laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 death reports and enable comparisons between epidemics. KW - surveillance KW - influenza KW - influenza viruses KW - coronavirus disease KW - COVID-19 KW - severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 KW - SARS-CoV-2 KW - coronavirus KW - viruses KW - epidemics KW - excess deaths KW - mortality KW - mortality rate KW - infection-fatality rate KW - trends KW - time series KW - seasonality KW - respiratory infections KW - zoonoses KW - the Netherlands DO - 10.3201/eid2702.202999 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-2999_article ER - End of Reference