Official statistics registered almost six million corona deaths worldwide during the course of the pandemic. According to current studies, the number of unreported cases is much higher.
Frankfurt – The corona pandemic* has claimed numerous lives over the past two years – according to a recent study, even more than initially assumed. “Our results suggest that the full impact of the pandemic was much greater than official statistics suggest,” writes the international research team led by Haidong Wang from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in the US in the journal The Lancet.
Between January 2020 and December 2021, 18.2 million more people died than would have been expected in non-pandemic years. Of these, only 5.9 million are officially recorded as corona dead. The research team assumes that more people than the recorded corona deaths died from the virus. According to the models, 120 out of 100,000 people worldwide died as a result of Corona. In 21 countries, that excess mortality rate was over 300.
Corona deaths worldwide – the sad leader is Latin America
The scientists found the highest rates in the Andean countries in Latin America (512 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), in Eastern (345) and Central Europe (316) and in sub-Saharan Africa (309). In some countries such as Iceland or Australia, however, according to estimates, even fewer people died in the pandemic years than would have been statistically expected.
Many corona deaths not reported due to missing diagnoses and lack of tests
According to the Federal Statistical Office, the excess mortality rate in Germany was particularly high at the end of 2020 and 2021. In December 2020, 32 percent more people died and in November and December of the following year 22 and 24 percent more people than the average of the four previous years. Here, too, the reported corona deaths only partially explain the excess mortality. The Federal Statistical Office also suspects unrecognized COVID-19 deaths to be one of the reasons. When it comes to deaths related to the corona virus, the question always arises as to whether people died “with” or “from” a corona infection. A study examined this in more detail.
There could be several reasons for the large difference between the registered and the actual number of deaths. Suspected causes include missing diagnoses, lack of testing, and problems reporting the numbers. Exactly how many people died directly from the corona infection and how many died from indirect consequences of the pandemic cannot be said with certainty: “Studies from several countries, including Sweden and the Netherlands, indicate that Covid-19 is the direct cause of most excess deaths, but we don’t currently have enough evidence for most regions,” says study leader Wang.
The scientists calculated the excess mortality as follows: First, they provided weekly or monthly information on the number of deaths from a total of 74 countries and 266 states or provinces – such as the German federal states – from the pandemic years 2020 and 2021 and from up to eleven years before together. Then they calculated the difference between the number of actual and statistically expected deaths, which finally gives the excess mortality. Statistical models help them calculate excess mortality for countries that do not have data on the number of deaths. (Monja Stolz with dpa) *hna.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
