This death toll is three times greater than the WHO total 6,000,000 reported COVID-19 deaths by the end 2021.
Researchers estimate that the pandemic has claimed the lives of 1.13 million Americans. The total reported COVID-19 deaths in America stands at 960,000.
The latest figures were published in The Lancet on Thursday. They are based upon the number of deaths in excess in different countries around the globe. Researchers used the model to calculate the “expected” deaths from years that were not affected by a pandemic and the actual number of deaths from each year.
This estimate is older than the Omicron variant’s peak across many countries, which caused large waves of death in the U.S. over the past few weeks.
Many deaths that have occurred in the last two years are directly related to COVID-19. The study’s authors believe that a number of factors, including underreporting infections and the strain on hospitals, may have contributed to the unprecedented increase in deaths due to the pandemic.
“Further investigation will help to determine how many deaths were directly caused by COVID-19 and how many occurred in indirect results of the pandemic,” Dr. Haidong Wang from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who was the paper’s principal author, stated in a release.
The U.S. does not have the highest excess deaths, but it is among the countries with the lowest excess mortality rates. India, Pakistan, Brazil, India, Mexico, Brazil and Mexico accounted for the largest combined death toll from the pandemic.
The study’s authors stated that “these seven countries accounted more than half the global excess deaths caused by COVID-19 during the 24-month period.”
Researchers found that the U.S.’s southern states had some of the highest excess mortality rates according to COVID-19.
An estimated 329.7 additional deaths occurred during the pandemic in Mississippi for every 100,000 people. This is the highest number of states. According to the global study, only 21 countries had more than 300 deaths per 100,000 people.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tally of Mississippi residents who have died of COVID-19, more than 12,000 people in Mississippi are affected. This is the highest death rate per capita in any state.
Robert Anderson, chief of CDC’s statistics branch on mortality, says that this paper “underlines the importance of using excess death in the analysis the effects of any kind of pandemic epidemic like this.”
The results of the study, published Thursday, echo similar figures generated by Anderson’s group. They have been computing excess deaths every week during the U.S. pandemic.
“You can see that there are a lot of COVID deaths in some of these countries but a lot of extra deaths. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t errors in cause-of-death certification. Anderson stated that a death is a death and that it’s easy to determine what caused it.
The CDC estimates that there were more deaths than usual during the pandemic earlier this year, based on data up to January 2022. The agency is also conducting ongoing research that suggests the number Americans infected with the coronavirus may be twice as high than official reports.
Anderson pointed out that the CDC’s current excess death figure could include deaths from other disasters, such as the storm that struck Texas and caused blackouts. The majority of additional deaths are due to COVID-19 cases. This ranks as one of the most deadly causes of death in the country.
Over the past two decades, the agency has seen significant swings in the number of other causes for death. This could also be due to the virus’ ripple effects.
Anderson stated that stroke and heart attack deaths have increased beyond pre-pandemic levels. The cardiovascular as well as the neurological problems that COVID-19 causes have been identified. It also disrupts doctors’ ability to care for patients who are not COVID during surges.
“We have seen a decline in deaths from chronic obstructive lung disease, which may also be due to the pandemic.” Anderson stated that these people are at risk for severe COVID effects and it is possible that they could have died without the pandemic.
Anderson stated that the CDC would continue to release data, but it may soon stop publishing the resource-intensive weekly estimates on pandemic deaths.
Anderson said that the agency might eventually account for COVID-19 deaths in the annual baseline deaths. Already, the CDC analyzes differences in mortality from flu and other endemic illnesses to determine what percentage of expected deaths it will account for.
Anderson’s team was forced to modify their algorithm to stabilize their estimates due to the long duration of the pandemic. They also added historical pre-pandemic data.
“When modeling data to determine how many deaths occurred in a normal year, we need to include a set number of years. Anderson said that you shouldn’t include non-normal years data in your model.
