Magnitude of COVID-19 deaths relative to other leading causes of death: a global analysis

Objectives: To quantify the burden of death that COVID-19 contributes relative to the top three causes of death for all countries.

Design: We performed uncertainty analyses and created contour plots for COVID-19 mortality to place the number of COVID-19 deaths in context relative to the top three causes of death in each country, across a plausible range of values for two key parameters: case fatality rate and magnitude of under-reporting.

Setting: All countries that have reported COVID-19 cases to the WHO and are included in the Global Burden of Disease Study by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Main outcomes and measures: Monthly number of deaths caused by COVID-19 and monthly number of deaths caused by the top three causes of death for every country.

Results: For countries that were particularly hard hit during the outbreak in 2020, most combinations of model parameters resulted in COVID-19 ranking within the top three causes of death. For countries not as hard hit on a per-capita basis, such as China and India, COVID-19 did not rank higher than the third leading cause of death at any combination of the model parameters within the given ranges. Up-to-date ranking of COVID-19 deaths relative to the top three causes of death for all countries globally is provided in an interactive online application.

Conclusions: Estimating the country-level burden of death that COVID-19 contributes relative to the top three causes of death is feasible through contour graphs, even when the actual number of deaths or cases is unknown. This method can help convey importance by placing the magnitude of COVID-related deaths in context relative to more familiar causes of death by communicating when COVID-related deaths rank among the top three causes of death.