Mortality rate

Mortality rate is a measurement. It measures the number of deaths in a population. 
It is often reported as a number of deaths per 1000 individuals per year. For example, a mortality rate of 9 in a population of 1,000 would mean 9 deaths per year in that entire population.
The World Bank calculated the death rate for the whole world was 8 deaths per 1,000 people in 2020. The mortality rate has been going down during the last hundred years, but the COVID-19 pandemic increased mortality rates in many countries. This is not only people who have died from Covid, though there were more than 6.8 million deaths directly due to COVID-19. The number of people dying of other causes has increased. Excess mortality rates - that is more than expected - across the European Union rose by 19% in December 2022, compared to the average number of deaths in the same period between 2016 and 2019. In Germany, 37.3% more people died in December 2022 than the average for December. This is thought to be partly because of weakened immune systems and partly because healthcare systems have been badly affected. There are also effects of climate change.