Mortality rate: 2021 the deadliest in years

Malta last year registered the highest number of deaths in five years, with a steep rise in the mortality rate recorded throughout the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Figures published by the EU’s statistics body, Eurostat, showed that the percentage of additional deaths, compared to the pre-pandemic years of 2016 to 2019, was significantly higher in 2021 than in 2020.
The statistics only refer to the total number of deaths and do not give any specific cause.
In March last year, more than 32 per cent additional deaths over the pre-pandemic period were registered. In 2020, the same figure had stood at 16.7 per cent.
Similarly, in August last year, there were 26.8 more deaths than in the period between 2016 and 2019. In August 2020, the excess mortality rate had stood at 13 per cent.
Despite the increases throughout the year, the situation seems to have improved in the last four months of 2021.
While, in 2020, the last quarter of the year had seen the most deaths, the rate started dropping significantly in the following year.

In December, the rate stood at 18.8 per cent, notably lower than that for the same month in 2020, when additional deaths had shot up to over 40 per...