The world is now approaching 6 million official COVID-19 deaths in a bit over two years. However, during this same period there have been over three times that many “excess deaths"—that is, deaths above what would normally be expected—according to a new study published in The Lancet. The estimation of around 18.2 million “excess deaths” was based upon an analysis of data obtainable from 74 countries, of deaths from Jan. 1, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2021. Estimations for the countries without sufficient data at the time of the study were made based upon matching up their profile with countries amongst the 74. The results for that two-year period are compared with trends for the preceding period, up to 11 years—a so-called “normal” amount of deaths in a year.
While admittedly this “normal” is an approximation, the strength of the measurement is that, instead of arguing over different standards around the world for filling out death certificates, it is hard to argue about whether someone is dead or not. And a lot more people died in the last two years from what was merely attributed to COVID.
The study’s lead author, Haidong Wang, is from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an organization that specializes in such statistical studies. Generally, deaths from COVID, as with influenza, can be overcounted if the deceased tested positive for COVID, but it was only an aggravating feature of the person’s medical condition (and not the primary cause of death). However, it is easily undercounted in a world sorely deficient in health infrastructure; and, in particular, everywhere that COVID testing capacity is lacking. There are other factors, such as in rural areas of India, where quick disposals of the body via, e.g., cremation defeated an overly-stretched medical capacity. India had 4.1 million of the 18.2 million excess deaths, eight times the 515,000 COVID deaths that have officially been reported.
