It remains to see how much excess mortality Latvia will have. I don't even like the term “excess mortality” because it is too technical and doesn't really describe what is going on.

My aunt died recently. She was 87 y.o. and bedridden. She had been very depressed for some years and wished to die because she couldn't even turn over without the help of a carer. Then she got covid from a carer, was hospitalized, recovered but passed away soon afterwards. Did covid hasten her demise? Most likely? We were sad that it happened but was it a tragedy or rather a blessing, a final release from unending sufferings? It is not for us to say but I am sure that many stories are like this. The average age of death in the UK was something like 84 years, more than average life expectancy. We were mostly fed stories about sob cases of younger people dying with yet unfulfilled life but almost never about people who longed for death and welcomed it.

With regards to my aunt – can her death even be considered an “excess”? That's my issue with this indicator. If we had a disease that killed mostly young people, excess mortality would be the same while quality adjusted life-years (QALY) lost could be hundreds of times higher. It doesn't make sense to see those two things as equal and yet here we are.

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