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A12 HEALTH
Friday 6 May 2022

Health workers and relatives carry the body of a COVID-19 victim for cremation in Jammu, India,
Sunday, April 25, 2021.
Associated Press

WHO: Nearly 15 million deaths

associated with COVID-19

By MARIA CHENG exercise, but having these WHO numbers
AP Medical Writer is so critical to understanding how we
LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organi- should combat future pandemics and
zation estimates that nearly 15 million peo- continue to respond to this one,” said Dr.
ple were killed either by coronavirus or by Albert Ko, an infectious diseases special-
its impact on overwhelmed health systems ist at the Yale School of Public Health who
during the first two years of the pandem- was not linked to the WHO research.
ic, more than double the current official For example, Ko said, South Korea’s deci-
death toll of over 6 million. sion to invest heavily in public health after
Most of the deaths occurred in Southeast it suffered a severe outbreak of MERS al-
Asia, Europe and the Americas, according lowed it to escape COVID-19 with a per-
to a WHO report issued Thursday. capita death rate around a 20th of the
The U.N. health agency’s director-general, one in the United States.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described Accurately counting COVID-19 deaths has
the newly calculated figure as “sobering,” been problematic throughout the pan-
saying it should prompt countries to invest demic, as reports of confirmed cases rep-
more in their capacities to quell future resent only a fraction of the devastation
health emergencies. wrought by the virus, largely because of
WHO tasked scientists with determining limited testing. Government figures report-
the actual number of COVID-19 deaths ed to WHO and a separate tally kept by
between January 2020 and the end of last Johns Hopkins University show more than
year. They estimated that between 13.3 6.2 million reported virus deaths to date.
million and 16.6 million people died either Scientists at the Institute of Health Metrics
due to the coronavirus directly or because and Evaluation at the University of Wash-
of factors somehow attributed to the pan- ington calculated for a recent study pub-
demic’s impact on health systems, such as lished in the journal Lancet that there were
cancer patients who were unable to seek more than 18 million COVID deaths from
treatment when hospitals were full of CO- January 2020 to December 2021.
VID patients. A team led by Canadian researchers es-
Based on that range, the scientists came timated there were more than 3 million
up with an approximated total of 14.9 mil- uncounted coronavirus deaths in India
lion. alone. WHO’s new analysis estimated that
The estimate was based on country- missed deaths in India alone ranged be-
reported data and statistical modeling, tween 3.3 million to 6.5 million.
but only about half of countries provided In a statement following the release of
information. WHO said it wasn’t yet able WHO’s data, India disputed the U.N. agen-
to break down the data to distinguish be- cy’s methodology. India’s Health and Fam-
tween direct deaths from COVID-19 and ily Welfare Ministry called the analysis and
those related to effects of the pandemic, data collection methods “questionable”
but the agency plans a future project ex- and complained that the new death esti-
amining death certificates. mates were released “without adequately
“This may seem like just a bean-counting addressing India’s concerns.”q