

The team collected all-cause mortality from governmental sources for four countries, including Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Singapore, and one region, including Hong Kong. In the present study, researchers estimated the excess mortalities to compare the efficacy of the LWC and ZC policies in protecting human lives within the same country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the high infectivity and transmissibility of Omicron have raised concerns regarding the mortality burden associated with the LWC policy. Since the emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant in 2021, several countries have applied the LWC instead of the ZC policy to facilitate the normalcy of pre-COVID life. Image Credit: 3DJustincase/Shutterstock Background Study: Zero-COVID policy or Living-with-COVID policy? Analysis Based on Percent Excess Mortality. In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers compared the percent excess mortalities due to the zero-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (ZC) policy or the living-with-COVID (LWC) policy. By Bhavana Kunkalikar Reviewed by Danielle Ellis, B.Sc.
