Official tolls showing the number of deaths directly or indirectly attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to be a “significant undercount”, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which said between six and eight million people might have died so far. As of Friday, more than 3.4 million deaths worldwide have officially been attributed to the disease since it first surfaced in China in late 2019. In 2020, the World Health Statistics report found there had been at least three million excess deaths due directly or indirectly to COVID-19, some 1.2 million more than officially reported. WHO data analyst William Msemburi said the estimate included both unreported COVID-19 deaths as well as indirect deaths due to the lack of hospital capacity and restrictions on movements, among other factors. “The challenge is that the reported COVID-19 [death toll figures] is an undercount of that full impact,” Msemburi told reporters.

Source: The Nation May 21, 2021 11:37 UTC