Racial disparity in excess mortality in Brazil during COVID-19 times.

We evaluated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on excess mortality by race/skin color in Brazil, between epidemiological weeks 12 and 50 of 2020. We compared the 2020-point estimate and the expected point-estimate applying 2019 mortality rates to the 2020 population. There was an excess of 187,002 deaths (+20.2%) compared to the expected. Excess mortality was 26.3% (23.3%-29.3%) among blacks/browns compared to 15.1% (14.1%-16.1%) among whites (58.9% of excess among black/browns). Age-standardized rates increased from 377 to 419/100,000 among blacks/browns compared to 328 to 398/100,000 in whites, resulting in 9% relative risk. Excess mortality in Brazil depicts a considerable gap, with increased mortality in all age-groups in the black/brown population.