Mortality among over-85s ‘skyrockets’

Continuing with the periodic focus on ‘excess mortality’ since the start of the Covid pandemic, Correio da Manhã today highlights the increase particularly in the country’s over-85s, referring to figures for the last three years. In 2020, for example, just a little over 8,000 citizens over the age of 85 died per year; last year that total was up by almost 1,000. Consensus is that the increase owes itself to the constraints within the SNS health service: “people are turning up at A&E departments in situations of greater gravity”, said Roque da Cunha, president of SIM (independent syndicate of doctors).