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COVID Death Toll Could Be 3 Times Greater Than Reported

COVID-19 headlines
COVID-19 newspaper headline clippings | Image by J.J. Gouin

Recent findings by the UN and World Health Organization (WHO) suggest the COVID-19 official death toll may be as much as three times higher than official reports originally stated.

The official death count directly linked to COVID-19, as reported to the WHO between January 2020 and December 2021, was 5.4 million. However, after conducting the most detailed investigation of global death tolls thus far, experts concluded that 14.9 million deaths during that period could be linked to the virus.

These new estimates were calculated by the Technical Advisory Group for COVID-19 Mortality Assessment, convened by the WHO and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA).

Experts in the group devised a methodology that would allow them to generate mortality estimates despite missing or unreliable data.

Significant disparities exist in the calculations of death tolls around the globe due to varying resources and procedures between countries. To more accurately measure the impact of COVID-19, the WHO turned to excess mortality totals.

Excess mortality is defined as “the difference in the total number of deaths in a crisis compared to those expected under normal conditions.”

In addition to counting deaths from the virus itself, excess mortality figures account for deaths that indirectly occurred due to the outbreak, such as individuals who were unable to access medical attention for other ailments because of the strain on the healthcare system. It also considers deaths that were avoided, for instance, due to the lowered risk for car accidents during pandemic lockdowns.

According to the WHO, approximately half of the world’s uncounted deaths reportedly took place in India, gauging the country’s death toll at a staggering 4.7 million, which the Indian government disputes. Most of these deaths are attributed to a significant wave of the virus in May and June 2021.

The Indian government, on the other hand, estimates roughly 480,000 deaths between January 2020 and December 2021.

India’s official government reports a death toll that is much lower than other independent evaluations, including a paper published in the journal Science which estimated that 3 million people in the country had died of COVID by mid-2021.

The director of the Statistics Division of UN DESA, Stefan Schweinfest, noted the importance of accurate data in a WHO news release.

“Data deficiencies make it difficult to assess the true scope of a crisis, with serious consequences for people’s lives. The pandemic has been a stark reminder of the need for better coordination of data systems within countries and for increased international support for building better systems, including for the registration of deaths and other vital events,” he said.

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