Third most common cause of death: Nearly 6,000 Swiss died of Corona in 2021

In 2021, 5,957 of the Swiss population living in Switzerland died of Covid-19. With 8.4 percent of all deaths, Covid-19 was the third most common cause of death after cardiovascular disease and cancer, the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FSO) announced on Monday.

In the two pandemic years 2020 and 2021, there were two periods of high excess mortality, largely due to Covid-19 as the cause of death, as the BFS further announced. In 2020, a total of 9,294 people died from Covid-19, about 53 percent of whom were male.

However, in a third period at the end of 2021, the rate of excess mortality could no longer be fully explained by Covid-19, as evidenced by the FSO's mortality monitoring and cause-of-death statistics. The average age of people who died from Covid-19 in 2021 was 80 years for men and 84.7 years for women. In 2021, the average age for men was 2.2 years lower and for women 1.5 years lower than in 2020.

Also, in 2021, 19 people had died from unwanted side effects of Covid 19 vaccines. There were ten women with an average age of 86 years and nine men with an average age of 80 years. The medical explanations of the cause of death also show that in all cases there were comorbidities relevant to the death.

Cardiovascular diseases and cancer as causes of death decreased by 4.6 percentage points in 2021 compared to 2020. In 2021, a total of 71,192 people of the population living in Switzerland died.

Total mortality among men was still slightly higher than before the corona pandemic, while that of women was almost back to pre-coronavirus levels, the BFS announced. (before/sda)