Introduction:

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on global health, and Colombia and, specifically, the Valle del Cauca Department are no exception, making it necessary to implement, throughout the country, various monitoring and analysis systems of the virus, which continue to this date. Within the framework of this need, the present investigation is proposed, with the aim of estimating the excess mortality from all causes in the department, and compare it with the mortality burden of the virus.

Methodology:

A cross-sectional observational study of excess mortality from all causes was carried out for Valle del Cauca in 2020, using official non-fetal deaths from DANE (National Administrative Department of Statistics), calculating the excess mortality observed compared to the expected one, using projections from the linear regression.

Results:

an excess of mortality from all causes of 18.3% was found for 2020, the increase being greater in men and the population aged 45 and over.

Conclusions:

The excess mortality from all causes observed in 2020 is not explained by the spread of the pandemic, given that the volume of deaths observed exceeds by more than 700 cases the mortality expected according to historical behavior 2015-2019, showing a significant volume of under-records of mortality due to COVID-19 or explained by indirect causes of the virus.

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