Excess Mortality in Massachusetts During the Delta and Omicron Waves of COVID-19

Faust, Jeremy Samuel; Du, Chengan; Liang, Chenxue; Mayes, Katherine Dickerson; Renton, Benjamin; Panthagani, Kristen; Krumholz, Harlan M.

doi:10.1001/jama.2022.8045

Cited by 54 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…An alternative laxer approach—often referred to as ‘living with COVID-19’— nonetheless are not without controversy and confusion 3 4. Most importantly, despite the generally lower disease severity associated with the omicron variants,5–7 ‘living with COVID-19’ may still lead to a considerable number of total excess deaths in the general population 8–10. Until a transparent evaluation of the ‘dynamic zero-COVID’ policy becomes available, we believe that ‘dynamic zero-COVID’ should remain an option for non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Dynamic zero-COVID’ policy and viral clearance during an omicron wave in Tianjin, China: a city-wide retrospective observational study

et al. 2022

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ObjectiveTo report how the Chinese mainland battled its first omicron wave, which happened in Tianjin, a metropolis with 14 million residents. We also sought to better understand how clinical features affected the timing of viral clearance.DesignA retrospective study of the omicron wave in Tianjin between 8 January 2022 and 3 March 2022.SettingExcept for the first cases on 8 January, all the omicron cases were identified through PCR mass testing in the residential communities. Residential quarantine and serial PCR mass testing were dynamically adjusted according to the trends of new cases.ParticipantsAll the 417 consecutive PCR-positive cases identified through mass screening of the entire city’s 14 million residents. 45.3% of the cases were male, and the median age was 37 (range 0.3–90). 389 (93%) cases had complete data for analysing the correlation between clinical features and the timing of viral clearance.Main outcome and measureTime to viral clearance.ResultsTianjin initiated the ‘dynamic zero-COVID’ policy very early, that is, when daily new case number was ≈0.4 cases per 1 000 000 residents. Daily new cases dropped to <5 after 3 February, and the number of affected residential subdivisions dropped to ≤2 after 13 February. 64% (267/417) of the cases had no or mild symptoms. The median interval from hospital admission to viral clearance was 10 days (range 3–28). An exploratory analysis identified a feature cluster associated with earlier viral clearance, with HRs of 3.56 (95% CI 1.66 to 7.63) and 3.15 (95% CI 1.68 to 5.91) in the training and validation sets, respectively.ConclusionsThe ‘dynamic zero-COVID’ policy can suppress an omicron wave within a month. It might be possible to predict in advance which cases will require shorter periods of isolation based on their clinical features.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Dynamic zero-COVID’ policy and viral clearance during an omicron wave in Tianjin, China: a city-wide retrospective observational study

et al. 2022

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“…For example, it may have precipitated a heart failure exacerbation or diabetic ketoacidosis; or it may have precluded more aggressive therapy for an underlying disease. The fact that excess mortality was observed during the Omicron era supports the fact that COVID-19 continues to cause deaths 6 , 7 . On the other hand, it is also possible that some patients who developed COVID-19 pneumonia did not die directly because of it but rather died of their underlying health problems, and the extent to which simultaneous infection contributed cannot be determined.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…Despite the milder severity of the Omicron variant, there are still many patients recorded as dying with COVID-19 in the US, and excess mortality has been observed during the Omicron era despite an increase in death certificates listing COVID-19 as a secondary, rather than primary, cause of death 6 , 7 , 8 . It is unclear what fraction of deaths are due to pulmonary disease (pneumonia), extra-pulmonary effects of infection (including exacerbations of other health conditions) or were unrelated (“incidental”) during the Omicron era.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence of Pneumonia Among Patients Who Died with COVID-19 Infection in Ancestral Versus Omicron Variant Eras

et al. 2024

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“…As previously, we applied seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (sARIMA) modeling to monthly all-cause death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state population counts (2014-2020) to create monthly population and expected death estimates for the study period (January 2021-December 2022), correcting for population decreases owing to cumulative pandemic-associated excess deaths. 3,4 Excess deaths were calculated (observed minus expected deaths).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Excess Mortality in the Vaccination Era in the United States, By State and 6-Month Period

Faust

Renton

et al. 2023

Preprint

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IntroductionThe US continued to record all-cause excess mortality after the rollout of vaccines. We sought to quantify excess mortality by state and compare these rates to primary series vaccination completion levels.MethodsObservational cohort, US and state-level data. Expected monthly deaths were modeled using pre-pandemic US and state-level data (2015-2020). Mortality data was accessed from CDC public reporting.ResultsWe find that in a two-year period since the rollout of vaccines, the US recorded >874,000 excess deaths. Vaccination rates and excess mortality were most strongly correlated in first two periods before the Omicron variant.ConclusionThe association between vaccination and lower excess mortality rates was strongest in 2021 and early 2022, prior to high population rates of infection-acquired immunity. The findings underscore the benefits of the rapid vaccination rollout campaign and the continued need to boost at-risk populations.

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Excess Mortality in Massachusetts During the Delta and Omicron Waves of COVID-19

Cited by 54 publications

References 8 publications

‘Dynamic zero-COVID’ policy and viral clearance during an omicron wave in Tianjin, China: a city-wide retrospective observational study

‘Dynamic zero-COVID’ policy and viral clearance during an omicron wave in Tianjin, China: a city-wide retrospective observational study

Prevalence of Pneumonia Among Patients Who Died with COVID-19 Infection in Ancestral Versus Omicron Variant Eras

Excess Mortality in the Vaccination Era in the United States, By State and 6-Month Period

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