The pandemic’s true death toll

The true death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult to determine. The Economist estimates the global death toll between [lower range] and [upper range] excess deaths. Excess-death statistics reveal that COVID-19 has caused more deaths than official statistics suggest.

July 28, 2023 . 1:57 AM

1 min read

The true death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult to determine due to various factors such as unreported cases and deaths from other causes during the pandemic.
The Economist's approach is to count all deaths and track excess deaths, which is the gap between expected deaths and actual deaths during a specific time period.
The estimated global death toll from COVID-19 is between [lower range] and [upper range] excess deaths.
Data on total mortality is available for only 84 out of 156 countries with at least 1 million people, so The Economist uses a machine-learning model to estimate excess deaths for all countries.
Excess-death statistics reveal that COVID-19 has caused more deaths than official statistics suggest, with Latin America being one of the hardest-hit regions.