COVID-19 accounts for nearly 10% of all deaths in Portugal in 2021

By Alyssa McMurtry

MADRID (AA) - COVID-19 was responsible for 9.6% of all the deaths in Portugal in 2021, according to data released by the Portuguese National Institute of Statistics on Friday.

The total number of deaths in 2021 hit 125,032. That’s up 1.1% from the year prior and 11.3% compared to 2019 before the start of the pandemic.

The statistics show that COVID-19 deaths peaked in January 2021, but by December they were 80% below the levels seen in December 2020.

Meanwhile, the aging country saw a steady decline in births.

From January to November 2021, just under 72,500 children were born, meaning around 41,000 more people died than were born.

In 2019, the number of deaths in Portugal outweighed births by 22,164.

By 2020, the same figure jumped to 32,229.

Despite the significant decline in births, the number of marriages shot up significantly last year compared to 2020.

However, the number of people getting married remained well below pre-pandemic levels.