Global COVID-19 Toll Could Be More Than 3 Times The Official Figures, Says Lancet

Washington: The COVID-19 toll worldwide could be more than three times the official toll, according to an analysis published in the Lancet.

The official COVID-19 toll was 5.9 million from January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2021. But the new study estimates that 18.2 million excess fatalities occurred over the same period and suggested that the full impact of the pandemic may have been far bigger.

With 5.3 million excess deaths, South Asia had the highest number of estimated excess deaths from Covid-19, followed by North Africa and the Middle East (1.7 million) and Eastern Europe (1.4 million). At the country level, the highest number of estimated excess deaths occurred in India (4.1 million), the USA (1.1 million), Russia (1.1 million), Mexico (798,000), Brazil (792,000), Indonesia (736,000), and Pakistan (664,000). These seven countries may have accounted for more than half of global excess deaths caused by the pandemic over the 24-month period, the authors of the study were quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

Excess Casualties — the difference between the number of actually recorded deaths from all causes and the number expected based on trends — are a key measure of the true toll of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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