In 2021 there were much fewer deaths in Belgium than in the absolute record year 2020. In Brussels, there is even a low mortality: there were 135 fewer deaths than expected.

2021 is expected to become a ‘normal’ year in the death rates, after the absolute year 2020. annual data that the national statistics agency StatBel placed online on Friday afternoon.

By comparison, nearly 127,000 people will die in 2020, about 18 percent more than the target three years earlier.

Under-mortality in Brussels

Brussels is the only region with an under-mortality in 2021. In other words, there were 135 fewer deaths last year than expected in the capital. Brussels has a younger population and is therefore less vulnerable. But the region has been criticized for some time as a result of a low vaccination rate. So how can that figure be explained?

When the figures are analyzed in detail, it becomes clear that under-mortality in 2021 is the first three months of that year, in which there were 118% fewer deaths than the average in the years 2017-2019.

Deadly second wave

“2021 did indeed start with slightly lower death rates than expected,” says VUB demographer Patrick Deboosere in The morning. “Very few people died in the spring. Normally the cold months at the beginning of the year are the ones with the highest mortality, but not now.”

We were just coming out of the tough second wave, with a series of measures that also had an effect on the mortality rate in general. the vaccines to do their work in the elders.”

In 2020, Brussels was the region with the highest excess mortality (+22.7%). And if we take stock of the two years of the pandemic, Brussels, along with the province of Liège and Hainaut, remains one of the three areas where the virus has caused the most damage.