The Real COVID-19 Death Toll

An analysis by the BBC of COVID-19 deaths suggests that the death count is significantly higher than officially reported. This is not very surprising. Many countries have responded with chaos, confusion and incompetence. Also, politics is relevant. Officials in some countries, e.g., the US, continue to pretend that everything is better than it really is, so the data may intentionally under count the deaths.

The analysis is based on excess deaths. Excess deaths are the number of deaths above officially reported deaths in view of the normally expected number of deaths if COVID-19 was not a factor. In the plot below, excess deaths are shown in blue, the dotted line is normally expected deaths and red is officially reported COVID-19 deaths.

For the US, the BBC analysis estimates there were about 26,968 excess or unreported COVID-19 deaths between Feb. 16 and May 2. Most of those deaths were probably directly caused by COVID-19. After May 2, the BBC data shows that reported deaths and actual deaths were basically the same. Presumably, that reflects more competence and/or honesty in death reporting in the US. Thus, one can reasonably add, say, about 23,000, to the official US death count to get a better feel for the real direct COVID-19 toll.