Global COVID death toll over a million higher than reported, Israeli study finds

4.22 million have been reported dead but many were left out, say Hebrew University researchers, pointing to authoritarian regimes downplaying virus and others unable to keep track

By Nathan Jeffay
3 August 2021

There have been over a million more coronavirus deaths around the world than shown by official statistics, an Israeli study claims.

Around 4.22 million people have been reported dead from COVID-19 worldwide, but researchers from Hebrew University say that inaccuracies in some countries and intentional downplaying of the virus in others have led to significant underreporting of mortality.

The suggestion is not a new one, but their contribution is peer-reviewed research, published in the eLife journal, evaluating the extent of the phenomenon in different countries

Economist Dr. Ariel Karlinsky and statistician Dr. Dmitry Kobak have studied around half the countries in the world, asking how much higher deaths were during the pandemic compared to normal times, based on statistics from previous years adjusted to reflect population changes.

This is known as the number of excess deaths.

Their estimate of a million-plus unreported COVID deaths is based on those 103 countries alone, and as their ongoing research expands to other countries, they expect the estimate to rise.

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