Last year, a total of 8,843 people died in the Balearic Islands due to all kinds of causes and, of them, 577 were a result of covid-19 as a clearly identified reason.
These 577 deaths accounted for 6.5% of all deaths, well below the national average (8.8%). Of the 450,744 people who passed away last year in this country, 39,444 were due to the pandemic virus
Covid deaths
If we exclude the autonomous city of Melilla, the three communities with the most deaths due to covid out of all their deceased citizens were Madrid, with 11.9% of their deaths attributed to this respiratory disease (5,855 deaths in absolute numbers), Comunidad Valenciana (10.6% of their deaths, 5,331) and Castilla La Mancha, a region where 2,171 people died as a result of covid-19, more than one in ten deaths in that year (10.5%)
However, Catalonia, the community with the fourth highest percentage of deaths attributed to covid-19, also holds first place in total deaths due to covid-19: a total of 7,017 residents in that region died from the virus.
Another aspect addressed by the National Institute of Statistics is the crude death rate. That is, the number of deaths per hundred thousand inhabitants.ñ
And in this aspect, that of the Balearic Islands is the lowest in the country if we again exclude the autonomous city of Melilla. In the islands last year 721.8 people died per hundred thousand residents in the archipelago, only above the North African city (676.3) and at a fair distance from the other set of islands in the country, the Canary Islands (763.5)
In contrast, the top three places in terms of crude death rate were occupied by Asturias (1,324.9 deaths per hundred thousand inhabitants), Castile and Leon (1,231.5) and Galicia (1,221)
This higher number of deaths per hundred thousand inhabitants is conditioned by the aging of the resident population in each area of the country and it seems clear that migratory movements have resulted in the Balearic Islands being one of the communities with a younger population. With the estimated mortality rate, a correction applied by the INE for this circumstance, the islands do not fare so well.
The Institute also addresses the increase in deaths up to last June from all causes. And here the Balearic Islands occupies fourth place among the Autonomous Communities with the highest percentage increase in deaths in the first half of 2022, which is now coming to an end.
The first place is held by Cantabria, with a percentage increase in mortality of 15.8%, followed by the Canary Islands (14.2%), Navarre (10.1%) and the Balearic Islands, with an increase of 9.9% in the first six months of the year
And the main cause of this increase in mortality in this archipelago is infectious diseases: in the Balearic Islands deaths due to this cause have increased by almost 30% up to June (29.5%) compared to a statewide average decrease of -25.8%. In deaths caused by failures in the nervous system, the islands again exceeded the state average, registering an increase of 9.4% compared to 7.9% for the whole country
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