The WHO estimates of excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic

🤖 Plain-English Summary

Reported statistics on COVID-19 mortality are problematic for many countries owing to variations in testing access, differential diagnostic capacity and inconsistent certification of COVID-19 as cause of death. We describe the data and methods used to generate these estimates and highlight the need for better reporting where gaps persist.

🔑 Key Findings

• Beyond what is directly attributable to it, the pandemic has caused extensive collateral damage that has led to losses of lives and livelihoods.
• Here we report a comprehensive and consistent measurement of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by estimating excess deaths, by month, for 2020 and 2021.
• We predict the pandemic period all-cause deaths in locations lacking complete reported data using an overdispersed Poisson count framework that applies Bayesian inference techniques to quantify uncertainty.

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