Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. All-cause mortality and estimates of excess deaths are commonly used in different countries to estimate the burden of COVID and assess its direct and indirect effects. Official data on deaths in Jordan for and previous years were obtained from the Department of Civil Status. We contrasted mortality rates in with those in each year and the pooled period using a standardized mortality ratio SMR measure.
Expected deaths for were estimated by fitting the overdispersed Poisson generalized linear models to the monthly death counts for the period of Using overdispersed Poisson generalized linear models, the number of expected deaths in April-December was 12, for women and for men. Almost The vast majority of excess deaths occurred in people aged 60 years or older. Excess deaths could reflect the increased deaths secondary to the pandemic and its containment measures. The majority of excess deaths occurred among old age groups.
It is, therefore, important to maintain essential services for the elderly during pandemics. The impact of COVID and its response measures on health, economy, and society has been substantial. In Jordan, the death toll has reached , with more than , people diagnosed with COVID at the end of [ 1 ]. All-cause mortality and estimates of excess deaths are commonly used in different countries to estimate the burden of COVID and assess its direct and indirect effects [ 3 , 4 ].
However, the calculation of these measures is challenged by data gaps in some countries. Excess deaths are calculated by subtracting the number of expected deaths in a specific period from the number of observed deaths in the same period. The indirect effects of the pandemic and its response measures result from denied or delayed diagnosis, management, and prevention of diseases; delayed care for acute emergencies; economic hardship; health care shortages; overburdened health care systems; disruption of essential health services; psychological distress; and domestic violence [ 5 , 6 ].
Previous studies used different methods to estimate excess deaths such as Farrington surveillance algorithms [ 7 ], the standardized mortality ratio SMR [ 8 ], the difference-in-differences econometric approach [ 9 ], generalized linear models such as Poisson loglinear and negative binomial with log link models [ 10 ], and the relevant excess mortality calculation method [ 11 ].
