A new global threat announced by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, caused by the pandemic spread of novel coronavirus infection has become a real concern for the humanity wellbeing. Quantitative assessment of the detriment caused by the pandemic is relevant to raise the awareness of healthcare system, and helps to understand the effectiveness of anti-epidemic measures. The methodology of assessment of the overall mortality attributed to the presence of COVID-19 pandemic, unlike the use of specific indicators which are sensitive to different methods of accounting the number of infected and fatal cases, provides more clear understanding of the pandemic-related detriment. The population changes in small nuclear city in the South Urals of Russian Federation have been analyzed during the decade based on the open-source demographic data to quantify the pandemic-related detriment, realized in excess overall mortality. The overall mortality has been compared to the previous 10 non-pandemic years using additive model of excess absolute risk. The number of absolute excess deaths, adjusted by sex, age, population size and the number of diseased has been calculated using multiparametric linear regression. The relationship between the number of overall deaths and the number of diseased with COVID-19, reported by the healthcare officials, has been analyzed. Total predicted biennial excess of overall deaths attributed to the pandemic was 557.9 cases among total 90,000 population. A total predicted pandemic-related excess death per 1,000 of diseased was 50.2 (95% CI 38.4; 62.0). Further monitoring of the epidemic situation in the nuclear city is necessary to develop an effective strategy to control and prevent the consequences of COVID-19. Major affords will be made in the upcoming research to understand the role of ionizing radiation and other risk factors such as cancer in the increase of pandemic-related mortality.

Mikhail Osipov has graduated the Chelyabinsk State Medical University and performed his PHD at the Southern Urals Biophysics Institute, Russian Federation. He works as a researcher of epidemiology department of Southern Urals Biophysics Institute, Russian Federation. He has over 40 publications in the field of radiation epidemiology, cancer risk assessment, diagnostic radiation exposure, and COVID-19. He was involved as an investigator in several joint international scientific research programs under the authority of Department of Energy and the National Cancer Institute, USA.