Thread by @DrEricDing

Staggering—at least 3 million excess deaths in 2020–which is **1.2 mil** more than the 1.8 mil official numbers: WHO estimates that is the excess in the America & Europe alone (data not yet including Asia, Africa, Middle East).

I’m also imagining India 😢
who.int/data/stories/t…

2) “Excess mortality is defined as the difference in the total number of deaths in a crisis compared to those expected under normal conditions. COVID-19 excess mortality accounts for both the total number of deaths directly attributed to the virus as well as the indirect impact”

3) what about undercount? “A recent assessment of health information systems capacity in 133 countries found that the percentage of registered deaths ranged from 98% in the European region to only 10% in the African region.” Damn! who.int/data/data-coll…

4) “At the regional level, COVID-19 excess mortality estimates range from 1.34-1.46 million in the Region of the Americas to 1.11-1.21 million in the European Region in 2020. This represents about 60% and 50% more than reported COVID-19 deaths, respectively.”

5) “The statistical model was developed using data from 50 (out of 53) countries in the European region and 15 (out of 35) countries in the region of the Americas to predict total death counts for countries for which observed deaths are not available….”

6)…”Country data included in the estimation process was **not adjusted for under-reporting**. The accuracy is reliant on the accuracy of both the reported total death counts by countries and upon the modelled expected counts.”

➡️ not adj for undercount = likely even much worse.

7) “Significant data gaps exist in African, Eastern Mediterranean, South-East Asian, and Western Pacific regions for which just over 360 000 total COVID-19 deaths were reported in 2020. Only 16 of the 106 Member States in these regions have sufficient data to make calculations.l