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WHO Claims Nearly 15M Died Due To COVID Pandemic
- By The Financial District
- May 6, 2022
- 2 min read
Nearly 15 million people died during the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) says, about 250% more than the death tolls compiled by countries and tallied by the Johns Hopkins University in the US, the New York Times reported.
Photo Insert: WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
The estimates by the WHO offered a startling glimpse of how drastically the death counts reported by many governments have understated the true toll of the pandemic. The previous count of virus deaths, from countries’ reporting, was six million.
In a report filed by about a team of 13 correspondents for the New Scientist led by Michael Le Page, the WHO said the COVID-19 pandemic directly or indirectly caused 14.9 million deaths as of the end of 2021, which means the total number could have exceeded 15 million.
In a major analysis, WHO officials calculated the number of pandemic-related deaths that occurred globally between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2022.
The researchers combined national death data for each country with statistics from scientific studies carried out in the same country. They also used a statistical model to account for deaths that may have been otherwise overlooked.
The team then estimated the number of fatalities that would have been expected had the pandemic not occurred, comparing the two figures to give an “excess” of 14.9 million.
This excess includes deaths directly caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus, as well as those that were indirectly caused by the pandemic, such as people who died prematurely because healthcare systems were overwhelmed.
According to John Hopkins University data, just over 6.2 million people have died of COVID-19 worldwide, not taking into account the pandemic’s indirect deaths.
“These sobering data not only point to the impact of the pandemic but also to the need for all countries to invest in more resilient health systems that can sustain essential health services during crises, including stronger health information systems,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
