The Covid-19 pandemic would have caused more than 18 million deaths worldwide between the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2021, more than three times the official toll, according to a study published Friday in the journal The Lancet.
• Read also: Towards the end of wearing a mask from the end of March?
• Read also: In the United States, Covid aid fraud exceeds $8 billion
• Read also: Two years of pandemic: Legault thanks Quebecers and commemorates the deceased
“Official statistics on Covid-19 deaths only give a partial picture of the true death toll” linked to the pandemic around the world, observe the authors of the study. Covid-19 is potentially one of the leading causes of death in 2020 and 2021, they say.
While the official figure counts 5.94 million deaths worldwide between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021, various works have deemed it to be highly underestimated and have attempted to better assess the overall assessment of the pandemic.
Latest study to date, that of the Lancet reassesses the number of deaths linked to Covid-19 at 18.2 million over this period, more than triple the official balance sheet, from calculations based on excess mortality.
Excess mortality corresponds to the difference between the number of people who died, whatever the cause of their death, and the number of deaths expected, based on past data.
In addition to a mortality database, the authors of the study have notably built several models to predict the expected mortality rate in the absence of Covid-19, among other things to compensate for the lack of complete and solid data in several countries.
“Of the 12.3 million additional deaths compared to the recorded Covid-19 deaths, a substantial part will probably be due to infection with Sras-CoV-2”, they consider.
The difference between the excess mortality and the Covid-19 deaths recorded could be explained by an under-diagnosis of infections by the coronavirus, and/or by deaths from other diseases higher than anticipated under the effect changes in behavior or less access to care because of the pandemic, according to the researchers.
By region of the world, the Andean countries of Latin America, eastern and central Europe, southern sub-Saharan Africa showed the highest excess mortality rates over 2020-2021.
Of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, Bolivia had the highest excess mortality rate. Conversely, in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, excess mortality appeared below the usual level.
The researchers recognize certain limits to their study, and consider other work necessary to measure the excess mortality directly due to Covid-19.
Among various studies, the weekly The Economist assessed the overall death toll of the pandemic at 17 million deaths worldwide, in a work published in mid-November and based in particular on the database of two researchers.
The World Health Organization has so far estimated, taking into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19, that the toll of the pandemic could be two to three times higher than the official figure.
Reference-www.journaldemontreal.com