Changes

Overall mortality experienced a remarkable increase in Spain from March to June 2020, i.e. during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The total number of deaths during this period was 183,297, i.e. 25% more than expected.

The Evolution of deaths graph shows both the usual or expected mortality (understood as that which occurred on average in the three-year period 2017-2019) and the mortality recorded in 2020 during the first six months of the year. The differences are clear. A peak was reached in April 2020, with 60,566 deaths, compared to an average of about 34,000 deaths in the previous triennial. This means over 26,000 deaths above the average; that is +78%. Also 57,500 deaths were recorded in March 2020 compared to an average of about 37,500 over the previous three years; that is +53%. There was also a slight increase in deaths to be registered during the month of May 2020 (less than +5%) compared to the previous three years. In contrast, the months of January, February and June 2020 saw a slightly lower mortality rate than the average for the same months of the previous three years (between -5% and -10%).