The death toll registered by the Covid-19 pandemic on Thursday is almost 2 million. The real extent is much worse.
More than 2.8 million people lost their lives due to the pandemic, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal of data from 59 countries and jurisdictions. This count provides the most comprehensive view of the global impact of the pandemic. Deaths in these places last year increased by more than 12% above average levels.
Less than two-thirds of that increase was directly attributed to Covid-19. Public health experts believe that many, if not most, of the additional deaths were directly related to the disease, particularly in the beginning of the pandemic, when tests were scarce. Some of these excess deaths came from indirect precipitation, interruptions in the health system, people avoiding the hospital and other problems.
To better understand the global number of deaths from the pandemic, the Journal compiled the most recent data available on deaths from all causes in countries with available records. Together, these countries represent about a quarter of the world’s population, but about three quarters of all reported deaths from Covid-19 by the end of last year.
The count found more than 821,000 additional deaths that were not counted in the government’s official Covid-19 death counts.