Covid-19 has marked a high increase in mortality in the country for the 9-month period of 2021.

According to Eurostat data, which also reports data for Albania on a weekly basis, fatalities for the 37 weeks of 2021 (until September) increased by a total of 33.4% compared to the same period of 2019, when the country was in a normal period, reaching 21.1 thousand lives lost in total.

But unlike 2020, when additional mortality was much higher among men than women, in the second year of the pandemic, Covid-19 did not spare women either.

According to INSTAT data, processed by "Monitor", for the 9 months 2021, female fatalities increased by about 28%, reaching almost 9,400.

However, men continue to be more affected by the pandemic. For the same period, the fatalities of this gender increased by 38.5%, reaching about 11.7 thousand loss of life.

For the 9-month period 2021, male deaths accounted for 55.5% of the total, from 53.5% that was this weight in the same period of the normal year 2019.

By 2020, at the height of the pandemic, male deaths accounted for up to 60% of the total.

Worldwide, the pandemic has resulted in higher mortality in males. Scientific studies have shown that both biological factors (stronger immune responses) and behavioral risk factors (e.g. smoking and other lifestyle habits) put men at a greater risk for health complications and death as a result of COVID-19. Men are twice as likely to die from COVID-19, influenced by a range of hypotheses, lifestyles and the fact that women typically have stronger immune systems, thanks to female hormones as well as chromosome structure.

Data by weeks show that the most difficult period of 2021 was February. In the third week of February 2021, fatalities among men increased by 162% and in the following two weeks were again twice as high as the corresponding periods of 2019. (See graph: Male deaths, by weeks to September, 2019 and 2021)

Also in the third week of February, fatalities among women increased by 117%. (see graph)

The pandemic came calming down gradually and by the summer period deaths had normalized being almost at pre-pandemic levels. But by the end of August and September, the virus popped out again. In the 37th week of the year, fatalities doubled in men and increased by 865 in women, compared to the same period of 2019.

Comparative data from Eurostat and national regional statistics show that Albania is one of the countries that has recorded the largest loss of life from the pandemic, which began in March 2020. Albania, along with two other countries in the region, Kosovo and Macedonia of the North are the three countries that have recorded the highest increase in additional mortality since March 2020, when the pandemic gradually "invaded" Europe by September 2021.

Other national INSTAT data indicate that in the country. Since April 2020, when the pandemic wave began to give its first consequences in Albania until the end of September 2021, there have been about 11 thousand additional deaths in the country compared to the average of the respective periods 2016-2019.

(SourceË Monitor)