The World Health Organization has stated that preliminary data indicates that at least 3 million people will have died from the coronavirus by the end of 2020. This is 1.2 million more than the official data suggesting that 1.8 million people worldwide will have died from Covid-19 by December 31, 2020. Moreover, in its most recent annual report on the state of world health, WHO experts conclude that the actual death rate may be two to three times higher than the official figure of 3.4 million deaths from the coronavirus to date.
The report also notes that the Covid-19 pandemic continues to pose a serious threat to the health and well-being of people around the world, with 90% of countries reporting serious disruptions in the delivery of essential health services to their populations. Part of the low-income population living in the most densely populated areas has found itself in a zone of particular risk. The WHO notes that some countries are unable to systematically and accurately assess the number of deaths, so they have to fill in the gaps with approximate calculations. They do this using a variety of statistical methods, including expert opinion and real-world data.
The graves of the coronavirus victims in Brazil. To make the calculation of mortality more consistent, WHO has established a special advisory group to develop common methodologies for assessing unrecorded deaths from Covid-19, including those indirectly related to infection. The group includes leading demographers, epidemiologists, data specialists and statisticians from countries around the world. Experts have developed a counting model for each country, taking into account regional characteristics, and concluded that the number of unaccounted deaths in the Americas in 2020 will be 1.34-1.46 million, and in Europe – 1.11-1.21 million. This is 60% and 50% higher than official data.
According to the WHO, the number of coronavirus deaths is significantly underestimated in many countries. For example, the United States reported about 570 thousand deaths since last March, while in reality there are about 900 thousand, according to the University of Washington. The real statistics in India are almost three times higher than the official ones, and in Russia, American scientists believe that the number of deaths is not 109 thousand people, as officially reported, but 593 thousand. According to Rosstat, from April 2020 to March 2021, 248.5 thousand people in Russia died from Covid-19. This is more than twice the number shown in the official data on the site stopcoronavirus.rf. However, according to independent researchers, the excess mortality (i.e. the difference between the statistics for this year and the usual seasonal mortality in previous years) in Russia during this period amounted to about 500 thousand people. In some countries, such as India, underreporting is due to a weak monitoring system, particularly in rural areas. In other countries, underreporting is deliberate, according to the study’s authors.
The University of Washington researchers obtained their data by comparing the average expected number of deaths from all causes in the pre-pandemic period with the actual number of deaths during the crisis. They excluded deaths not directly related to the pandemic (i.e., deaths from underlying illnesses and those who did not seek medical care) and deaths from traffic accidents, which were reduced by the need to stay home.
But the World Health Organization’s report on the state of health in 2021 also includes data that inspire optimism. Average life expectancy worldwide has risen from 66.8 years in 2000 to 73.3 years in 2019. At the same time, healthy life expectancy has increased from 58.3 years to 63.7 years. The largest gains in life expectancy have occurred in low-income countries, due to sharp declines in child mortality and infectious diseases. Since 2000, global consumption of tobacco products has fallen by 33%, but adult obesity is on the rise and by 2016, a quarter of the population in developed countries will be overweight.