Luis Escobar / La Paz
A study carried out by the Bolivian Private University (UPB) warned that 64,542 people died from causes attributable to Covid-19 between March 2020 and January 2022, in almost two years of the pandemic. This figure represents triple the official records of the Ministry of Health, which for the same date reached 20,907. These “excess deaths” occurred for five reasons, according to the report.
The Civic Registry Service (Serecí) reported that in the 23 months that the pandemic lasted -until last January- 158,939 people died. This figure exceeds by 64,542 the number of deaths that should have happened in that space of time according to the projections made by the university.
The academic director of the Graduate School of Public Management of the UPB, Andrés Uzín, explained the five reasons that caused this “excess in registration”.
“This disease had many asymptomatic patients. Those people acquired the virus and showed no signs of being infected, but died from some adverse effects, such as thrombi, heart attacks, strokes and others. (The death occurred) without the disease being detected, ”explained the professional.
The second reason occurred because Covid-19 tests could not be carried out on a person who has already died. “For example, ambulances would arrive at nursing homes and find them dead. They were not tested to find out if they died from this disease.”
The third cause refers to people who, after overcoming the disease, were left with “very strong” consequences, for example fibrosis in the lungs that generated clots and caused the death of people days or weeks later.
The fourth reason was due to the lack of tests, especially in the first waves of the pandemic. “The analyzes did not supply the number of sick and infected. At the peaks, one test per patient was carried out, when everyone around (the affected person) should have been carried out, ”he said, adding that, for example, in China they did up to 100 for each patient.
The fifth reason was idiosyncrasy. “There were many people who got sick and tried to heal at home, but they died. They did not resort to a doctor and this situation was recorded more in the altiplano than in the plains. In La Paz, for example, there was more death toll than in Santa Cruz,” said the professional.
Many people choose to hide the cause of death of their loved one so that it can be buried in cemeteries. This situation occurred because some neighbors prevented the burials of citizens who had coronavirus.
The study carried out by the UPB showed more than 64,000 excess deaths, a figure that triples the 20,907 reported by the Ministry of Health until last January.
Health: 9 out of 10 deceased people were not vaccinated
“In Bolivia, of 11,113 people who died from June 1, 2021 to March 15, 2022, 91.3% are unvaccinated people; Only 8.7% of the deceased had a complete vaccination schedule and this was surely due to age or the underlying disease, ”the Minister of Health and Sports, Jeyson Auza, reported on Monday.
The authority explained that thanks to the study of the National Health Information System, Epidemiological Surveillance (SNIS-VE), these data reflect that of 10 deaths, nine did not have a complete vaccination schedule.
According to the relationship of this study, of 100% of those who died from covid, 0.14% (16 cases) correspond to boys, girls and young people between 5 and 17 years old. They didn’t have a complete outline; 1.43% (159 cases) to young people between 18 and 29 years old; 4.94% (549 cases) to people between 30 and 39 years old; 11% (1,223 cases) to people between 40 and 49 years old; and 20.8% (2,315 cases) correspond to people between 50 and 59 years old. 62.9% (6,990 cases) correspond to people over 60 years of age.
