OBJECTIVES : To estimate changes in mortality and morbidity in a Colombian Caribbean population affiliated to a health insurance company between January 2018 and June 2020 due to the health emergency caused by COVID-19.

METHODS : A retrospective descriptive study was conducted. We take a grouped ICD-10 administrative medical consultations and hospital admission records (6,090,006 records) by major disease chapters from a population of 2,119,410 affiliated in a Colombian Caribbean health insurance company. We estimated the relative importance and the annual percentage change of incidence and mortality rates for the first six months. Incident and deaths due acute and severe respiratory infections (ARI-SARI) (ICD-10: J0X-J2X, U0) were analyzed through endemic channel and the percentage changes by interrupted time series. A 5% level of significance was considered.

RESULTS : According to endemic channel of ARI-SARI, 1.9 (95% CI 1.2 - 2.8) cases were expected per epidemiological week, in 2020 there were 377.8 cases per week (95% CI 175.9 - 579.7). The incidence and mortality rate for ARI-SARI increased 119.9 x 100,000 (95% CI 81.7 – 1.9, 38.6 times) and 2.8 deaths x100,000 (95% CI 1.9 – 3.8, 11.8 times). All diseases decreased in the incidence of events in 2020. Between 2018 and 2020, the disease groups with the greatest relative changes in incidence of cases were trauma, poisoning, and some other external causes (S00-T98) ranked 11 (644 cases x100,000) to 7 (537 x100,000) diseases of the digestive system (K00-K93) ranked 4 (1,240 x 100,000) to 2 (825. 9 x100,000). The first cause of death was respiratory system diseases (J00-J99) (10.9 x100,000 in 2018 to 34.8 x100,000 in 2020) increasing 3.2 times followed by circulatory system diseases (I00-I99)(16.1 x100,000 in 2018 to 16.6 x100,000 in 2020) increasing 2.8%.

CONCLUSIONS : In this population, the COVID-19 increased the incidence of ARI-SARI and the displacement of cardiovascular disease as the first cause of death.