COVID-19 disrupted patterns of cause-specific mortality in Switzerland
Anthony Hauser, Moritz Wagner, Anna Fesser, Karim Abawi, Anne Laube, Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, Julien Riou · 2026
Read COVID-19 disrupted patterns of cause-specific mortality in Switzerland by Anthony Hauser, Moritz Wagner, Anna Fesser, Karim Abawi, Anne Laube, Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, Julien Riou (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13338603.txt.
Description
Anthony Hauser and co-authors analyze how COVID-19 reshaped causes of death in Switzerland in a 2026 study. Weekly deaths from 2011 to 2021 were split into nine cause groups, with age, sex, and region also tracked. A Bayesian model trained on pre-pandemic years predicted what 2020 and 2021 should have looked like.
Heart deaths peaked during the autumn 2020 wave, yet no cause stayed high across both pandemic years as reported. Among people aged 80 and older, non-COVID breathing deaths fell by 25 percent in the reported estimate, largely offset by COVID deaths. Only a modest overall excess remained. Hidden COVID deaths and shifted timing likely explain part of the pattern.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Anthony Hauser, Moritz Wagner, Anna Fesser, Karim Abawi, Anne Laube, Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, Julien Riou |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 32886 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |