Global deaths from COVID-19 would total 18.2 million, triple the official figures

The deaths caused by the pandemic coronavirus in all the world They can be three times more than what the official figures reflect and reach up to 18.2 million deaths, according to a study published by the scientific journal “The Lancet”.

The first global estimate of excess deaths submitted to a peer-review process suggests that the impact of the pandemic is much greater than the 5.9 million deaths between January 2020 and December 2021 reflected in the data available so far.

By region, the Andean zone of Latin America is the hardest hit in the world, with 512 additional deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Eastern Europe (345 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants); Central Europe (316 deaths), southern sub-Saharan Africa (309 deaths), and central Latin America (274 deaths).

The researchers who have prepared the analysis, coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations of the University of Washington (USA), emphasize that more work is necessary to understand what proportion of that mortality is a direct consequence of COVID-19 and what is the weight of the indirect effects of the pandemic.

Previous studies on data from countries such as Sweden and Norway suggest that the virus is the direct cause of much of the deaths, but “for now there is enough evidence available” to determine this with greater certainty, said Haidong Wang, lead author of the study.

Wang and his colleagues collected data on all-cause mortality in the years 2020, 2021, and up to 11 years before the pandemic, in some cases, from 74 countries and 252 regional authorities, as well as three large international databases.

From that information, they built a model that allowed them to estimate global excess deaths during the pandemic. The authors caution that the accuracy of their figures has limitations, as they have used statistical methods to estimate possible excess mortality in countries that have not published sufficient data.

On the planet as a whole, 120 more people per 100,000 inhabitants died than would have been expected if the coronavirus pandemic had not broken out, according to his estimate.

Some countries, by contrast, recorded a lower-than-average mortality rate during that period, including Iceland (48 fewer deaths per 100,000 population), Australia (38 fewer deaths) and Singapore (16 fewer).

In absolute numbers, India was the country with the highest excess deaths (4.1 million), followed by the United States (1.1 million), Russia (also 1.1 million), Mexico (798,000), and Brazil (792,000).

The authors of the study suggest that the wide difference between the official numbers of deaths and the additional deaths that appear in the records may be due to “lack of diagnoses due to lack of testing” and “problems with the publication” of the data.

Deaths that were not directly caused by the disease could be due to causes such as suicide, “drug use motivated by behavioral changes”, as well as lack of access to health care and other essential services, according to the researchers.

The impact of each of these factors varies by country and region, underline the authors of the study, who are confident that as more countries publish detailed data on causes of mortality, it will be possible to know more precisely the effects of the pandemic.