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Earth Medicine

World's True COVID-19 Death Toll Nearly 15 Million, Says WHO 213

According to the World Health Organization, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the deaths of nearly 15 million people around the world. "That is 13% more deaths than normally expected over two years," notes the BBC. From the report: The WHO believes many countries undercounted the numbers who died from Covid -- only 5.4 million were reported. In India, there were 4.7 million Covid deaths, it says - 10 times the official figures -- and almost a third of Covid deaths globally. The Indian government has questioned the estimate, saying it has "concerns" about the methodology, but other studies have come to similar conclusions about the scale of deaths in the country.

The measure used by the WHO is called excess deaths - how many more people died than would normally be expected based on mortality in the same area before the pandemic hit. These calculations also take into account deaths which were not directly because of Covid but instead caused by its knock-on effects, like people being unable to access hospitals for the care they needed. It also accounts for poor record-keeping in some regions, and sparse testing at the start of the crisis. But the WHO said the majority of the extra 9.5 million deaths seen above the 5.4 million Covid deaths reported were thought to be direct deaths caused by the virus, rather than indirect deaths.
Yesterday, the United States officially surpassed 1 million COVID-19 deaths -- "a once unthinkable scale of loss even for the country with the world's highest recorded toll from the virus," says NBC News.
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World's True COVID-19 Death Toll Nearly 15 Million, Says WHO

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  • wild beasts (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymouse Cowtard ( 6211666 ) on Friday May 06, 2022 @05:21AM (#62508632) Homepage
    Homelessness, pestilence, war. Next stop: famine. There are people around here living in cars and going to food charities. People with jobs and families. Others are looking at a 0.25% increase to historically low rates and are already wondering how high it can go before they have to sell. Interesting times.
    • I don't know about that. There have always been poor people, and it isn't like we're seeing even great depression style problems.
  • by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Friday May 06, 2022 @05:29AM (#62508640) Homepage

    ... if in the coming few years there'll be an equivalent fewer deaths. If there is it'll mean most of the people who died of covid were the sick and elderly who were going to die or would have died soon anyway. If the death rate *doesn't* drop in the next few years it'll show that covid killed a significant proportion of the young+ middle aged and healthy.

    • by Errol backfiring ( 1280012 ) on Friday May 06, 2022 @05:52AM (#62508660) Journal
      Well, yes and no. Covid was extra severe for older people, but, for example, the Spanish Flu was extra severe for younger people. In determining the effects of Covid it is not necessarily helpful to think that these people would have died of something else anyway.
      • by jd ( 1658 )

        We also have long-term implications of the virus. We just don't know for certain what these are, but there are plenty of viruses that cause cancer, and Epstein-Barr is now definitely a major factor in MS. The virus link is the most worrying, as we already know this is most likely to happen when the fossil viruses in our DNA start doing things they shouldn't and this has apparently been observed with Covid.

        It's a perfectly honourable, long-standing tradition on Slashdot to get side-tracked, so in keeping wit

        • Yes, you're misapplying the precautionary principle, because in the same way there could be latent effects from the spike protein(s) in Covid, there might also exist latent effects from the spike protein(s) in the vaccine. It could very well be that everyone who got covid is at increased risk of cancer, but the vaccinated may be at greater risk. And the difference could be substantial.

          In the 80's, science warned us against the fats in butter, so people switched to margarine. The problem was that the m

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday May 06, 2022 @06:18AM (#62508710) Homepage Journal

      We are already seeing a slight reduction compared to previous monthly rates for this time of year.

      Thing is, people who died prematurely often lost years of their lives, and died in pain. Often they couldn't have their loved ones with them even if it wasn't for the lockdown, since the risk of them catching it and dying was pretty high, especially before we had vaccines.

      • Most people who died were over 70, and majority of those in poor health
        https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.10... [pnas.org]
    • Well, Covid certainly culled the weak and feeble ones. But also people who could have lived another couple years despite being far from what could be considered "healthy".

      There's still a considerable death toll from people who live unhealthy lifestyles and who are already existing "on the edge". The average, healthy, human has a built-in security buffer for diseases and health problems. If you're already living on the edge of that buffer, well, the next breeze kicks you off the cliff.

      And a lot of people in

    • You can’t just use age in dealing with statistics like this. Factor in voter records and you’ll see some trends.

    • We've already got some data on this from countries that handled Covid fairly well, for example in New Zealand I think the death rate actually dropped [citation needed] due to less traffic on the roads, more hygiene precautions, etc. So for at least some factors we can already do a degree of A/B comparison.
    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      You do realize that no matter who dies or what the cause it can be said "he or she would have died of something eventually'.

      • Sure, as in, 'everybody who died in the holocaust would have been dead by now anyways.'

        But I think the point was that the death rate in the coming years / decades will continue to reveal new information about the demographics of the excess deaths registered in the last couple years, which we currently don't have. (Since identifying a single cause of death such as covid for any given individual is sometimes tricky or doesn't really even make sense.)

        • Not entirely certain since the virus continues to mutate and mutating to a version with lower death rate is "in the interest of the virus" so the strain going around infecting people in 2023 will most likely be less deadly than the one in 2019 which we already have seen with the new variants that spread more easily but have a lower death rate.
    • As all the people who survived covid but have complications from it die from those complications.. covid significantly reduces lung capacity, damages the pancreas and heart. People who want going to have heart attacks or strokes or we're going to have very mild ones are now going to die from them.

      It's a disease with long lasting effects that virtually everyone got. It's going to have a significant impact on the lifespan of the entire human race.
      • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        "It's a disease with long lasting effects that virtually everyone got"

        Rubbish. Long covid- depending which figures you believe - affects less than 10% of people.

        • He is not talking about "long covid" - he is talking about organ damage. Different category. [mayoclinic.org]
          Also, it's not 10% of cases. It's 43% - going to 57% for those who needed hospitalization. [webmd.com]

          It's the nature of the disease. Even your "regular flu" damages tissue simply by virus multiplication. [sciencedaily.com]

          You may be confusing the number of DEATHS SHORTLY AFTER COVID - that's (more than) 1 in 10. [nihr.ac.uk]

          The research team gathered information on hospital admission or readmission, and death from any cause.
          They looked at new diagnoses of respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic, kidney and liver diseases.
          The data covered 140 days on average for each patient.

          The researchers found that, compared to matched controls, COVID-19 patients:

          - were 4 times more likely to be admitted to hospital; nearly 1 in 3 were readmitted (after the initial discharge)
          - were 8 times more likely to die; more than 1 in 10 died
          - were 27 times more likely to have a new diagnosis of a respiratory disease
          - were 3 times more likely to have a new diagnosis of diabetes
          - had a higher risk (50% higher) of a new diagnosis of heart disease.

          The increased risk of diabetes and heart disease supports other evidence that COVID-19 damages many organs, not just the lungs.

          People who were under 70 or from ethnic minority groups were badly affected after hospital treatment for COVID-19.
          They were compared, respectively, to the over 70s or to White people in the general population.
          The under 70s and people from ethnic minority groups had greater increases in risk of death, hospital admission and disease beyond the lungs.

          • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

            "He is not talking about "long covid" - he is talking about organ damage."

            Really? I presume you can read as he said:

            "It's a disease with long lasting effects that virtually everyone got"

            Last time I looked "virtually everyone" doesn't mean 57% of the 0.1% of the population who were hospitalised.

    • Or... hear me out... people may have gotten vaccinated.

      The death rate has already dropped. Despite the death rate and the excess deaths not agreeing, they do very much trend with each other (we calculate the excess deaths on a monthly rate) and both have trended down with vaccination.

    • It's also possible that it killed primarily older people but reduces the life of younger people (from long COVID).

    • ... if in the coming few years there'll be an equivalent fewer deaths. If there is it'll mean most of the people who died of covid were the sick and elderly who were going to die or would have died soon anyway. If the death rate *doesn't* drop in the next few years it'll show that covid killed a significant proportion of the young+ middle aged and healthy.

      If long covid leads to additional deaths, then the people it didn't kill might die earlier than they would otherwise and the trend could continue longer.

  • Long COVID (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LatencyKills ( 1213908 ) on Friday May 06, 2022 @06:03AM (#62508682)

    I haven't RTFA so I don't know how the WHO is coming to these numbers, but the thing people really don't have their headed wrapped around is long COVID whose numbers, at least anecdotally, seem staggering (I've seen estimates between 10 and 30%). I know people my age (early 50s) in fair health who got COVID 18+ months ago and are still struggling with mental and stamina and sensory declines to this day.

    • Re:Long COVID (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday May 06, 2022 @06:37AM (#62508738)

      According to the National Library of Medicine, it's 80% of patients [nih.gov] that deal with lasting effects.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Long COVID seems to be similar to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and ME, so I can really sympathise with the people who have it. There is no treatment. Some people say graded exercise therapy works, but it was banned last year in the UK because there is evidence it does more harm than good.

      As well as being awful for those who get it, it will be a disaster for the economy if large numbers of people are unable to work, or only work part time.

      • Adding to that disaster is the people who already have stuff similar to CFS and ME, and who drop out of the mainstream labor force because their social distancing calculation never changed, unlike popular sentiment.
    • who got COVID 18+ months ago

      Reading that part I got cold spine thinking about a new covid variant called 18+ instead of 19.

      • by jd ( 1658 )

        Covid 18+ might well end up being an actual designation, given some things can't be socially distanced.

  • We all remember how "well" US was doing compared to Belgium, worst death toll of covid in 2020.

    oh wait
  • My understanding is that they broadened the parameters for what qualified as a Covid death. If you die from Covid you should only be counted if it directly caused the death. A motorcycle rider that crashed and died did not die from Covid, by any stretch.

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