Global Covid Death Toll May Be Nearly Three Times Higher—15 Million—Than Official Records, WHO Says

Topline

The Covid-19 pandemic may have claimed nearly 15 million around the world in 2020 and 2021, according to World Health Organization estimates published in Nature on Wednesday, almost three times what was reported in official records and underscoring the devastating and far-reaching impact of the disease as countries strive to return to normal.

Key Facts

There were approximately 14.8 million deaths associated with Covid-19 around the world in 2020 and 2021, according to new WHO estimates, more than 2.7 times official reports of 5.4 million.

An estimated 4.47 million of these excess deaths were in 2020 and 10.38 million were in 2021, the researchers said.

The higher figure is based on an estimate of “excess deaths” or “excess mortality” during the first two years of the pandemic, a measurement comparing the difference between the total number of deaths observed and the number expected if the pandemic had not occurred.

The WHO researchers said looking at excess deaths offers a more complete understanding of the pandemic’s death toll than official statistics as it can account for issues like a lack of testing capacity, different standards for certifying Covid deaths and inconsistent, incomplete or entirely absent statistics that can muddy official records, as well as deaths indirectly linked to the pandemic from issues like wider disruptions to health services.

In absolute terms, India had far more excess deaths linked to the pandemic than any other country—an estimated 4.7 million—sitting at around 10 times the official toll reported by the Indian government.

India was followed by Russia (1.1 million), Indonesia (1 million) and the U.S. (932,000), which respectively had the second, third and fourth highest number of excess deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic according to the WHO estimates.

What We Don’t Know

Precise estimates on deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As the researchers note, official statistics give an incomplete and likely much lower gauge of pandemic deaths. Many of the issues that plague official pandemic death counts also muddy efforts to calculate excess deaths and the researchers said around half of countries did not have granular, complete death data available. The assumptions used to fill these gaps can lead to different estimates and other researchers have arrived at different figures to the WHO team. For the same time period, a consortium of health researchers estimated 18.2 million excess deaths and the Economist magazine estimated around 16 million.

Most Excess Deaths

These countries had the highest number of excess deaths between January 2020 and December 2021, according to WHO estimates:

1. India
2. Russia
3. Indonesia
4. U.S.
5. Brazil
6. Mexico
7. Peru
8. Turkey
9. Egypt
10. South Africa

If excess deaths are considered relative to the number of deaths expected based on past trends, a different picture emerges. This metric suggests the pandemic had a particularly devastating impact on Peru, where WHO estimates suggest deaths doubled during the pandemic. Other heavily affected countries according to the WHO’s estimates include Ecuador and Bolivia, where deaths rose around 50% compared to expectations, and Mexico and Armenia, where deaths rose around 40%. The researchers said that countries with smaller populations appear worse when comparing excess deaths and expected deaths, noting that India—first in the absolute number of excess deaths—ranks 21st in the list of worst affected countries and the U.S.—fourth in absolute terms—is absent from the top 25.

Crucial Quote

The WHO’s estimate on excess mortality is more conservative than other calculations, said Enrique Acosta in a comment piece published alongside the study. Acosta, who was not involved with the research and is a demographer and sociologist at the Centre for Demographic Studies in Barcelona, Spain, and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, noted that although the researchers had deployed some “problematic inferences” in their work—particularly scaling death counts from subnational to national levels—gaps in data gave them little choice and there was “no obvious alternative” to using them. “However speculative these estimates, most are surely closer to the truth than are officially reported numbers of deaths from Covid-19,” Acosta said. Relying only on confirmed deaths “would imply that the pandemic spared low-income and lower-middle-income countries,” Acosta added. “This assumption is highly implausible, and even irresponsible.”

Big Number

6.66 million. That’s how many confirmed Covid deaths there have been around the world since the start of the pandemic, according to official data collated by Johns Hopkins University. The Economist’s latest estimate on excess deaths is nearing 21 million. Going by official figures, the U.S. has more Covid deaths than any other country in the world. According to CDC data, nearly 1.1 million have died with the virus.

Further Reading

Covid Still Killed Over 9,000 Americans In November, As Attention To It (And Boosters) Declines (Forbes)

Here Is What One Million Covid Deaths In The U.S. Looks Like (Forbes)

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