The WHO estimates of excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic
William Msemburi, Ariel Karlinsky, Victoria Knutson, Serge Aleshin‐Guendel, Somnath Chatterji, Jon Wakefield
Nature
Abstract
Abstract The World Health Organization has a mandate to compile and disseminate statistics on mortality, and we have been tracking the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic since the beginning of 2020 1 . 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. 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 reporte