MARID – Death rates in Spain have been steadily increasing since 1980. In 2020 there was an extreme outlier in this area. Although the corona pandemic seems the most logical cause, Covid-19 does not appear to be the main reason for so many deaths in 2020.
In Spain, 493,776 people died last year. That was 75,073 more than in 2019, which means an increase of 17.9%. These figures were recently published by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics. The report ‘Deaths by Cause of Death – The year 2020’ shows that in all months of 2020 the death rate was many times higher than in 2019. The peak months are March and April with 57.1% and 78.4% more deaths respectively than in the same period. months of 2019.
Covid-19 not the main cause of death
Although people may first think of Covid-19 as the main reason why so many people have died, this cause is only in third place. The INE report shows that circulatory disorders, such as hardening of the arteries, high blood pressure, or aneurysms, are the main reason for so many deaths. These conditions were the cause of 24.3% of deaths.
Tumors are the second leading cause of death in 2020; tumors killed 22.8% of all people who died last year. Infectious diseases, including Covid-19, are only in third place. An infectious disease was responsible for 16.4% of all deaths.
Death from infectious disease not previously in the top 3 causes of death
Although Covid-19 was not the leading cause of death, deaths from infectious diseases increased by 1,220.4% in 2020 compared to previous years. The coronavirus may not be the leading cause of death in 2020, but it did play a significant role in the high death rates now published by the INE.
In total, more men (249,664) than women (249,112) died last year. In men, tumors turned out to be the number one cause of death in 2020. This was not the case for women; Circulatory disorders were the most commonly recorded cause of death in women.
