According to IBGE data from this Wednesday (27th March), 1.5 million people died in the reference year; in 2021, there were 1.78 million
Brazil recorded 1.5 million deaths in 2022, a 15.8% reduction compared to the previous year –when the country had 1.78 million deaths. The data is contained in the Civil Registry Statistics 2022 report, released by IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) this Wednesday (27.mar.2024). Here is the full survey (PDF – 2MB).
The drop comes after 2021 registered a peak in deaths during the covid-19 pandemic and reached the peak of the historical series, which began in 1974. Even so, the value for 2022 is still above that identified in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year . At the time, the country had 1.31 million deaths, 14.2% less than what was recorded in 2022.
Here is the death record:
- 2021 – 1,786,347;
- 2022 – 1,504,763.
When comparing months, January 2022 was the only one that showed an increase in deaths compared to the same period in 2021, with 161,189 deaths, or 10.7% more deaths. The number reflects the arrival of the 3rd wave of Covid at the beginning of 2022, with the expansion of the omicron variant. July appears as the 2nd month with the highest number of deaths: there were 134,334 records.
“Despite the reduction in deaths from Covid-19 in a context of increased coverage of the vaccinated population, the virus remained quite lethal in the first half of 2022”says the report.
In April 2021, the country observed the highest peak of the disease, with 21,141 deaths recorded in a single day. With the arrival and distribution of vaccines throughout the country, the number of deaths began to reduce, but reached a new peak in February 2022 due to the omicron. On the 12th of this month alone, for example, there were 6,246 deaths.
From an international point of view, the WHO (World Health Organization) only declared the end of the pandemic the following year, in May 2023.
Region, age and gender
According to IBGE, all major regions of the country saw a reduction in deaths in 2022. The biggest drops were in the Central-West (-21.7%) and the North (-21.1%). In the Southeast and South, they were 17.4% and 15.6% less, respectively. In the Northeast, the rate fell 9.3%.
Among age groups, however, the country observed a 7.8% increase in deaths of people under 15 years of age. There were 40,195 deaths in the group in question. In 2021, the number was 37,200.
“Deaths whose causes were respiratory diseases such as flu, pneumonia, bronchiolitis, asthma and others corresponded to more than 60% of the difference in the total number of deaths in this age group between 2021 and 2022. Considering that the vaccination of Brazilian children and adolescents is It occurred later than the vaccination of adults, and that, therefore, they took longer to complete the vaccination schedule, it is possible that Covid-19 contributed strongly to this situation”says IBGE in a statement about the research.
For those aged 40 to 49, there was a 30.1% reduction in the number of deaths. Among those aged 50 to 59, the drop was 30.5%. The 2 groups presented the highest decline among the age groups evaluated. Elderly people over 80 years old represented 32.2% of records in 2022, equivalent to 483,033 deaths. They are, therefore, the group with the highest number of deaths in the population.
By gender, men traditionally have higher rates than women. There are 120.8 male deaths for every 100 female deaths. When considering the comparison with 2021, however, the deaths of men had a greater drop (-16.8%) than those of women (-14.5%).
