The recorded number of deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic as of Thursday is approaching 2 million. The actual size is much worse.
More than 2.8 million people have died in the pandemic, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 59 countries and jurisdictions. This census provides the most comprehensive picture to date of the global impact of the pandemic. The number of deaths in these places rose by more than 12% above the average last year.
Less than two-thirds of that increase is directly attributable to Covid-19. Public health experts believe that many, if not most, of the additional deaths were directly related to the disease, especially in the early pandemic when testing was scarce. Some of those additional deaths were the result of indirect consequences, health care disruptions, people evading the hospital, and other problems.
To better understand the global toll of the pandemic, the Journal has collected the latest available data on all-cause deaths from countries with available data. These countries together account for about a quarter of the world’s population, but about three quarters of all reported deaths from Covid-19 up to the end of last year.
The census found more than 821,000 additional deaths not counted in the government’s official Covid-19 death counts.