Decreased mortality associated with respiratory viral infections 3 between December 2019 and March 2020 compared to previous year, Southeast France

Abstract

We observed 39% less deaths associated with common respiratory viruses during colder months of 2019-2020 compared to 2018-2019. Excess mortality associated with influenza virus infections is estimated to be 5.9 per 100,000 people worldwide and 5.3 per 100,000 people in Europe. In comparison, mean mortality associated with SARS-CoV-2 infections is estimated to be 0.3 per 100,000 people worldwide and 2.2 per 100,000 people in Western Europe (https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/covid-19/). These data and our findings allow putting into perspective the death burden of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Finally, we observed that fatality rate was 7 times lower in our center than for whole France that has a very high fatality rate of 26.0 per 100,000.