Covid-19 has killed 15 million people in two years– WHO

By Newsroom

5^th May 2022

The Covid19 pandemic has caused the deaths of nearly 15 million people around the world, the World Health Organization -WHO estimates.

That is 13% more deaths than normally expected over two years.

The WHO believes many countries undercounted the numbers who died from Covid19 – only 5.4 million were reported.

In India, there were 4.7 million Covid19 deaths, it says – 10 times the official figures – and almost a third of Covid19 deaths globally.

The Indian government has questioned the estimate, saying it has “concerns” about the methodology, but other studies have come to similar conclusions about the scale of deaths in the country.

The measure used by the WHO is called excess deaths – how many more people died than would normally be expected based on mortality in the same area before the pandemic hit.

These calculations also take into account deaths which were not directly because of Covid19 but instead caused by its knock-on effects, like people being unable to access hospitals for the care they needed.

But the WHO said the majority of the extra 9.5 million deaths seen above the 5.4 million Covid19 deaths reported were thought to be direct deaths caused by the virus, rather than indirect deaths which was a tragedy according to Dr Samira Asma, from the WHO’s data department.

Alongside India, countries with the highest total excess deaths included Russia, Indonesia, USA, Brazil, Mexico and Peru, while Countries with low excess mortality rates included China, which is still pursuing a policy of “zero Covid” involving mass testing and quarantines, Australia, which imposed strict travel restrictions to keep the virus out of the country, Japan and Norway.

The academics who helped compile the report admit their estimates are more speculative for countries in sub-Saharan Africa, because there is little data on deaths in the region. There were no reliable statistics for 41 out of 54 countries in Africa.