[COVID-19, neoliberalism and health systems in 30 european countries: relationship to deceases.]

Objective: The study was motivated by the need to understand the high number of deaths caused by COVID-19 in the global pandemic declared since December 2019, and how it impacted differently in European countries. The hypothesis was that less investment in the public health system, the number of doctors per inhabitant and the number of hospital beds available to the population led to a higher number of deaths after the arrival of COVID-19 in each country studied. The objective was to analyze the relationship between the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the global pandemic declared since December 2019 and health policies and investment in European countries.

Methods: A research study was conducted in which a total of six variables were analyzed with official and contrasted data: public health expenditure per capita; doctors per 1,000 inhabitants; number of beds per 1,000 people; deaths from COVID-19 per million inhabitants; number of tests to detect COVID-19 per 1,000 inhabitants; and GINI Coefficient to measure the degree of social inequality in each country. It was carried out in 30 European countries. Frequency and correlation analyses were carried out (Pearson).

Results: Five countries were found, which gave values above 300 deaths per million (data from April 27, 2020): United Kingdom; (305.39), France (350.16), Italy (440.67), Spain (495.99) and Belgium (612.1). Precisely, in the countries that recorded the most deaths (United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium) on April 27, we did not find high values of TEST performance. In our analysis, we found that the lower the investment of public spending in health (per capita), the higher the number of deaths per COVID-19 per million inhabitants, the lower the coverage of hospital beds, and the lower the number of doctors. Finally, we found that the lower the expenditure on public health, the higher the GINI coefficient (thus greater social inequality).

Conclusions: A negative effect in terms of deaths was detected when investment in public health was lower; the higher number of deaths from COVID-19 was correlated (p<0.005) with greater social inequality (GINI coefficient) and with lower investment in public health (p<0.001); this had an impact on the lower number of available beds and low physician coverage per 1,000 inhabitants.