The pandemic’s true death toll is millions more than official counts: Nature

Countries have reported some five million COVID-19 deaths in two years, but global excess deaths are estimated to be double or even quadruple that figure (i.e. 12 million to 22 million).

On 18 January 2022, the journal Nature published a news item examining the likely real death toll from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nature said: “On 1 November, the global death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic passed five million, official data suggested. It has now reached 5.5 million. But that figure is a significant underestimate. “

“Records of excess mortality — a metric that compares all deaths recorded with those expected to occur — show that many more people have died in the pandemic. Working out how many more is a complex research challenge. Some official data are flawed, and more than 100 countries do not collect reliable statistics on deaths at all. Efforts to correct the record use methods including satellite images of cemeteries, door-to-door surveys and machine-learning computer models that extrapolate estimates from available data.”

To read the full article in Nature, follow the source link below:

Source: Nature, 18 January 2022.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00104-8?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=628f2b80d3-briefing-dy-20220118&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-628f2b80d3-46466266