Assessing Excess Mortality Patterns in Argentina over the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020-2021): A Comprehensive National and Subnational Analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted global health metrics, with the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting over 732 million cases and 6.7 million deaths by the end of 2021. Additionally, approximately 14.8 million excess deaths were estimated globally through 2022, significantly surpassing reported COVID-19 deaths. In Argentina, recorded pandemic-related fatalities reached nearly 160,000 from March 2020 to December 2022, underlining the necessity for a detailed examination of excess mortality across national and subnational levels. This study aims to describe excess mortality in Argentina in 2020 and 2021 and its subnational geographic areas, and to identify geographic and temporal disparities across sub-regionsusing publicly available monthly mortality and climate data from Argentina, spanning 2015 to 2021. Excess mortality was assessed using Generalized Additive Models (GAM) to account for long-term and annual trends, monthly climatic variations, and epidemiological reports of Influenza-like Illness (ILI). Data across various geographic regions was analyzed to identify temporal and spatial disparities in mortality. Our analyses revealed significant regional disparities in mortality, identifying a total of 133,612 excess deaths across Argentina during the study period, with notable peaks coinciding with COVID-19 waves. These insights not only contribute to our understanding of the pandemics broader effects but also emphasize the critical need for enhanced public health responses informed by mortality data analyses. The development of an open-source, interactive platform further supports this initiative, enabling detailed exploration and informed decision-making to better manage future public health crises.