Covid Study Finds 18 Million Deaths, Three Times Official Tally

The pandemic’s death toll may be three times higher than official Covid-19 records suggest, according to a study that found stark differences across countries and regions.

As many as 18.2 million people probably died from Covid in the first two years of the pandemic, researchers found in the first peer-reviewed global estimate of excess deaths. They pointed to a lack of testing and unreliable mortality data to explain the discrepancy with official estimates of roughly 5.9 million deaths.

Healthcare workers transfer a patient from an ambulance to the emergency department as the body of a deceased patient arrives at an adjacent mortuary at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong on March 8.

Photographer: Lam Yik/Bloomberg

“At the global level, this is quite the biggest mortality shock since the Spanish flu,” said Christopher J.L. Murray, director ...