The mortality data represent an alternative source to monitor the status of epidemics. Preliminary studies on the Covid-19, based on the deaths of the first four months of 2020, have shown interesting features and differences compared to the official monitoring of the Covid-19 cases. For instance, there is a large excess in deaths, more pronounced at the beginning of the pandemic. In general, they indicate that mortality information can be used to provide a less biased time profile of the pandemic.
This data, combined with other unbiased indicators, such as the calls to the emergency room for respiratory problems and the results of serological surveys, can be used to both derive epidemiological parameters and to monitor the status of future pandemics.
There are several innovative aspects related to these studies:
1) The baseline subtraction of the mortality time-series allows the extraction of an unbiased time distribution of the deaths related to Covid-19. Thus, the information becomes available for epidemiological studies and to extract, for instance, the basic reproduction number R0/Rt.
2) Mortality data, with the appropriate baseline and statistical treatment, can be used to monitor new contagion waves of the Covid-19 pandemic and possible future epidemics.
3) The calls to the ER for respiratory problems can be used as an unbiased indicator for epidemiological studies and to also monitor the development of the contagion.
4) The use of multivariate analysis, neural networks and artificial intelligence can be used to better identify and study the direct and the correlated contributions of Covid-19 pandemic.
Each of these aspects is quite innovative and would deserve a separate publication.