Highest excess mortality recorded in Ticino

The cordoned-off promenade in Lugano on April 2, when coronavirus-related excess mortality was peaking in Ticino Keystone / Francesca Agosta

Ticino, the southern canton on the border with Italy, was the first Swiss region to be affected by increased mortality, as early as March 9, following the Covid-19 outbreak. 

On Tuesday the Federal Statistical Office published its latest analysisExternal link of excess mortality – deaths that exceed the expected number – by major region. 

At the peak of coronavirus-related excess mortality in Ticino, calendar week 14 (from March 30), three times as many people over the age of 65 died there as would have been expected on the basis of the figures for “normal” deaths over the past five years, it said. 

Excess mortality hit the Lake Geneva region one week after Ticino, in calendar week 12 (from March 16). At its peak – also in calendar week 14 – twice as many people aged over 65 died there as would have been statistically expected. As this region has a larger population than Ticino, the Lake Geneva region has been the most affected by excess mortality in absolute terms. 

The other greater regions noted excess mortality – to a lesser extent – in week 13 (northwest Switzerland), week 14 (Neuchâtel, Fribourg, Bern, Solothurn, Zurich and eastern Switzerland) and week 16 (central Switzerland). 

As of April 28, more than 1,600 people have died from Covid-19 in Switzerland and some 29,000 have tested positive.