Hong Kong health experts warn 10-year high in death rate last year cannot be put down solely to Covid-19
- Health specialists say death rate of 8.2 people per 1,000 could have been caused by fatalities involving other conditions
- Delayed treatment for people with other health problems because of concentration on coronavirus may have increased deaths
Hong Kong’s death rate hit a 10-year high last year, but health experts warned against putting the increase down to coronavirus-related deaths only.
A total of 62,100 deaths were logged last year and the provisional standardised death rate was 8.2 per 1,000 people, the highest since 2012 when the same level was recorded, the government revealed on Thursday.
But population health specialists and an epidemiologist said deaths logged over the pandemic could have been caused by other factors, including delayed treatment for people with other illnesses because of the priority given to the battle against Covid-19.
“Died of Covid-19 and died with Covid-19 are different,” Paul Yip Siu-fai, the chair professor in population health of the University of Hong Kong, said.
He added that there were few cases where people had died of the coronavirus, but more were dying with it.