WHO: Nearly 15M deaths associated with COVID-19

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates nearly 15 million people were killed either by the coronavirus or by its impact on overwhelmed health systems in the past two years, more than double the official death toll of 6 million.

William Msemburi, Technical Officer (WHO), Department of Data and Analytics said "Globally we estimate 14.9 million excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic by 31 December of 2021. So this estimate ranges from 13.3 million to 16.6 million.

Most of the excess deaths, that's 84%, are concentrated in Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas. Lower-middle-income and upper-middle-income countries account for 81% of this 14.9 million number."

Accurate numbers on COVID-19 deaths have been problematic throughout the pandemic, as the figures are only a fraction of the devastation wrought by the virus, largely because of limited testing and differences in how countries count virus deaths.