I think the short answer is that we don’t know. The longer answer is that, although the official estimates add up to around 6 million (1 million in the U. S.), it is suspected that the total number may be three ties as high.
The editors of the Washington Post declaim:
A new study, based in part on statistical modeling, suggests the loss in lives was close to three times greater than the official data. It is important to understand what happened and why in the greatest public health catastrophe since the 1918 influenza pandemic, which is estimated to have killed at least 50 million people.
The new study, peer-reviewed, was published Thursday in the Lancet medical journal and carried out at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The research, examining the pandemic years 2020 and 2021, found that while the official death toll worldwide was 5.94 million due to covid-19, in fact 18.2 million people might have perished in the pandemic. That estimate is similar to one reached by the Economist in ongoing research that uses different methods. Both studies suggest that the pandemic’s pain in lost lives has been undercounted because of a combination of factors, including neglected treatment for other ailments.
At the core of this is a measure of excess mortality, the difference between the observed numbers of deaths from all causes, and what would normally be expected over the same time period, absent the pandemic. Although excess mortality is an estimate, it can help underscore the true scope of the catastrophe in lost lives, help scientists prepare for the next pandemic and pinpoint vulnerabilities in public health systems.
Will that methodology really determine the number of deaths from COVID-19? How would you disaggregate the number of deaths from COVID-19 from the deaths caused by lack of medical treatment due to the lockdowns?
The number of deaths from Spanish flu worldwide in the pandemic of 1918, again a very crude estimate, is estimated around 50 million. Some will say that the greatly reduced number of deaths even as the world’s population grew enormously, is due to the benefits of modern medicine. Maybe. Maybe not. Contemporaneous accounts of Spanish flu make it sound much, much more serious than COVID-19.
Let me end with a question. If a low number of deaths due to COVID-19 becomes a source of national pride and confidence in the government, would you expect the statistics reported by the government to be accurate, particularly in authoritarian countries? I don’t think we’ll ever know how many people died of COVID-19.
Since death is often multi-factorial, and statistics and reporting are imprecise, I prefer to look at excess deaths as the most useful metric. But I would like to see better data collection so that we can, with more precision, figure out the number of actual deaths by Covid compared to deaths with Covid compared to deaths from closures and lockdowns. Not surprisingly, our federal and state bureaucracies are not interested in that, nor are our political leaders. Another missed opportunity.
There are actually a number of papers on this topic. Link goes to one. In general the govt does not order most studies done. They might help fund them. They might offer funding that will be paid if someone does the study they want. Not sure if I can find it again but pretty sure there was a grant being offered if someone wanted to study this. Would take more work that I care to invest to find out if any existing studies on the topic used govt funding.
Anyway, it is a really complicated topic. The linked paper covers a lot of the problems. Almost all of us saw a lot fewer MI pts in the hospital, so that probably meant some deaths you could ascribe to the lockdowns, but then we saw almost no flu. Deaths from auto accidents were down many places. Fewer alcohol deaths but more overdoses. We clearly had some deaths because hospitals were overloaded. How does that factor in with mitigation efforts? Every pediatric hospital in the country saw a big drop in patients. There was no lockdown or restrictions to bringing kids in to see a doctor. That was all voluntary on the part of parents. Gets hard to sort out. Anyway, in linked article they offer some possible numbers.
https://www.health.org.uk/publications/long-reads/what-has-happened-to-non-covid-mortality-during-the-pandemic
Steve
No argument here on that.
My wife of 49 years died of it on valentines day. I couldn’t see her for three weeks. When I brought her to hospital at doctor’s advice she had a bad cough, breathing ok. Tested positive, as did I.
She was put into isolation.
When they let me in three weeks later she was intubated, unconscious, and all they wanted was my permission to kill her.
She was considered not eligible for antibody transfusion because they were saving limited supplies for the un-vaccinated.
Her older sister had the transfusion and survived because it was a different city, different hospital.
I developed a loose chest cough three weeks later, while she still lived, but I was never in danger.
Relatives, one of them an RN, told me they wanted the room and the ventilator, probably true .
How many died? One more.
I am so sorry to hear that, Grey Shambler. Condolences.
Condolences.
Steve