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    Home > Biochemistry News > Biotechnology News > WHO's latest Nature paper: The number of new crown deaths is grossly underestimated, and the actual number may be 3 times as many as reported

    WHO's latest Nature paper: The number of new crown deaths is grossly underestimated, and the actual number may be 3 times as many as reported

    • Last Update: 2022-12-30
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    Three years into the pandemic, more than 600 million people have been infected and more than 6.
    6 million people have died.

    But many researchers believe that the actual number of infections and deaths far exceeds these statistics
    .

    The number of deaths related to the coronavirus pandemic can be measured
    in excess mortality.
    It's a handy tool to overcome differences in how pandemic-related deaths are identified and documented across regions
    .
    Excess deaths are estimated by comparing the total number of deaths
    reported by a region or country from various causes with those expected by trends in recent years.

    Excess mortality is a good measure of COVID-related deaths, including not only direct deaths from COVID infections, but also those who
    did not contract COVID but died as a result of the collapse of the healthcare system caused by COVID.

    Previously, the British "Economist" magazine assessed that the global number of new crown-related deaths in 2020 and 2021 was between
    12.
    6 million and 21 million.
    The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, USA, puts the number at between
    17.
    1 million and 19.
    6 million.

    On December 14, 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a research paper
    entitled: The WHO estimates of excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in Nature, a top international academic journal.
    The paper provides a comprehensive assessment of global COVID-related excess deaths
    in 2020 and 2021.

    According to the WHO, the number of COVID-related deaths worldwide is grossly underestimated, with an estimated 14.
    83 million direct and indirect COVID-related deaths in 2020 and 2021, nearly three times
    the number of COVID-related deaths reported by countries around the world over the same period (5.
    4 million).

    The pandemic caught the world by surprise, and the damage it caused was unimaginable
    .
    Prior to 31 December 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) had reported a total of 287 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 5.
    4 million
    related deaths.

    The coronavirus-induced outbreak first appeared at the end of 2019, and in March 2020, the WHO declared a global pandemic
    .
    Yiqing pointed out that the main challenge is the development of diagnostic tools, and many countries have rapidly adapted and expanded testing technology to achieve large-scale testing of the new coronavirus, but many countries still lack testing capacity
    .
    In addition, there are differences
    in the criteria for determining COVID-related deaths across countries.
    These have led to incomplete
    assessments of the spread of the pandemic and its impact at the national level and globally.
    Therefore, assessing the pandemic-related excess mortality rate can better measure its overall impact
    .

    In practice, however, many countries do not have all-cause mortality (ACM) data to directly estimate their excess mortality
    .
    WHO has developed a modelling framework based on all-cause mortality (ACM) and other relevant factors in countries for which data are available, providing a comprehensive assessment
    of national, regional and global excess deaths in 2020 and 2021.

    The assessment shows that the global excess death toll reached 14.
    83 million in 2020 and 2021, nearly three times
    the 5.
    4 million officially reported COVID-related deaths over the same period.
    About 80% of excess deaths occur in middle-income countries, with Latin America being the hardest affected
    .
    Low-income countries have fewer excess deaths, mainly because they account for only 9% of the global population and have younger
    populations.

    The blue line represents excess deaths and the red line represents reported COVID-related deaths

    According to the WHO's assessment of excess deaths, 25 countries – India, Russia, Indonesia, the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa, Iran, Pakistan, Ukraine, Nigeria, the Philippines, Colombia, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Germany, Congo (Brazzaville), Romania, Spain and Ethiopia – had the highest
    number of excess deaths in 2020 and 2021.
    Specifically, India was 4.
    74 million, Russia 1.
    07 million, Indonesia 1.
    03 million, and the United States 930,000
    .

    Among these countries, countries such as the United States, Russia, Brazil, Egypt, Spain, etc.
    have complete statistics, so the range of data uncertainty is narrow
    .
    Indonesia, India, Turkey and other countries have a wide range of data uncertainty, and Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia and other countries have the largest
    data uncertainty range.

    In 2020 and 2021,1 the 25 countries with the highest number of excess deaths, red dots represent reported deaths and purple dots represent excess deaths

    The number of excess deaths is actually closely related to the total population of a country, from the absolute number of excess deaths, India ranks first, the United States fourth, but after considering the population of these two countries, the degree of impact of these two countries ranks outside
    the top 20.
    Countries such as Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Mexico were the most
    affected.
    Peru had 97% more excess deaths than normal in 2020 and 2021, Ecuador by 51% and Bolivia by 49%.

    The ratio between global excess deaths (14.
    83 million) and reported COVID-related deaths (5.
    4 million) in 2020 and 2021 is 2.
    74, but this ratio varies greatly between countries, for example, in many countries in Africa the ratio exceeds 5 or even 10, while in Western Europe the ratio is close to 1
    .

    The ratio of excess deaths to reported COVID-related deaths

    Overall, this WHO study shows that the pandemic has led to a significant increase in global mortality, with 14.
    83 million excess deaths (between 13.
    23 million and 16.
    58 million) in 2020 and 2021, including 4.
    47 million in 2020 (between 3.
    91 million and 5.
    07 million) and 10.
    36 million in 2021 (between 9.
    06 million and 11.
    97 million), with a significant increase
    in mortality in most countries around the world.
    The study also shows that more COVID-related deaths and excess deaths were reported globally in 2021 than in 2020
    .
    Overall, excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 far exceeded reported COVID-related deaths, especially in some middle- and low-income countries
    .

    This study shows that the global excess mortality rate in 2021 was 0.
    13%, which means that the new crown surpassed heart disease as the leading cause of death in 2021, and this figure also surpassed the influenza pandemics of 1957, 1968 and 2009, but did not exceed the 1918 influenza pandemic, and the global excess mortality rate of the 1918 influenza pandemic was as high as 1%.

    Excess mortality quantifies increased mortality from all causes, including direct COVID deaths, indirect COVID deaths (e.
    g.
    , health system overload), and strictly non-COVID-related deaths (e.
    g.
    , deaths from violent conflict or other shocks such as disasters).

    Finally, the WHO said that the complexity of assessing the impact of the pandemic on global mortality highlights the urgent need for a robust centralized system to monitor global mortality in real time, and that the construction of such a surveillance system requires a concerted effort by the whole world
    .
    However, once built, they will serve as a basic early warning of
    future pandemics and health crises.

    The WHO has also created an interactive web application [2] that publishes all results of the excess mortality assessment, a tool that transparently explores national, regional and global assessment data
    .
    All the data and code has been put on GitHub [3], and the analysis and results are fully reproducible
    .

    This article is an English version of an article which is originally in the Chinese language on echemi.com and is provided for information purposes only. This website makes no representation or warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness ownership or reliability of the article or any translations thereof. If you have any concerns or complaints relating to the article, please send an email, providing a detailed description of the concern or complaint, to service@echemi.com. A staff member will contact you within 5 working days. Once verified, infringing content will be removed immediately.

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