Governments have undercounted the COVID-19 death toll by millions, the WHO says

2022/05/07 Leave a comment

Similar analysis to that of The Economist. Biggest surprise to me is the inclusion of the USA in the top 10 – but perhaps I shouldn’t be:

The COVID-19 pandemic directly or indirectly caused 14.9 million deaths in 2020 and 2021, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, in its newest attempt to quantify the outbreak’s terrible toll.

That’s around 2.7 times more than the 5.42 million COVID-19 deaths the WHO says were previously reported through official channels in the same 2-year period.

Here’s a rundown of four main points in WHO’s report:

Overall, deaths are far higher than those in official reports

In its tally, WHO aims to quantify “excess mortality,” accounting for people who lost their lives either directly, because of contracting COVID-19, or indirectly, because they weren’t able to get treatment or preventive care for other health conditions. The figure also takes into account the deaths that analysts say were prevented because of the pandemic’s wide-ranging effects, such as curtailing traffic and travel.

The pandemic’s current reported death toll is 6.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 tracker.

India is seen suffering a much deeper loss than reported — a finding that India disputes

In some cases, WHO’s figures depict a shockingly wide gulf between official figures and its experts’ findings. That’s particularly true for India, where WHO says millions more people died because of the pandemic than has been officially reported.

India reported 481,000 COVID-19 deaths in 2020 and 2021. But William Msemburi, technical officer for WHO’s department of data and analytics, said on Thursday that the toll is vastly higher, with 4.74 million deaths either directly or indirectly attributable to the pandemic — although Msemburi said that figure has a wide “uncertainty interval,” ranging from as low as 3.3 million to as high as 6.5 million.

The data behind the staggering figures promise to expand the understanding of the pandemic’s true effects. But the findings are also a flashpoint in debates over how to account for unreported coronavirus deaths. India, for instance, is rejecting WHO’s findings.

India “strongly objects to use of mathematical models for projecting excess mortality estimates,” the country’s health ministry said on Thursday, insisting that WHO should instead rely on “authentic data” it has provided.

10 countries accounted for a large share of deaths

Deaths were not evenly distributed around the world. The WHO says about 84% of the excess deaths were concentrated in three regions: Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas.

And about 68% of the excess deaths were identified in just 10 countries. WHO listed them in alphabetical order: Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Turkey and the United States.

Overall, WHO found the number of excess deaths was much closer to reported COVID-19 deaths in high-income countries than in lower income countries.

Many countries still lack reliable health statistics

The WHO says it relied on statistical models to derive its estimates, looking to fill in gaps in official data.

“Prior to the pandemic, we estimate that 6 out of every 10 deaths were unregistered” worldwide, said Stephen MacFeely, director of WHO’s department of data and analytics. “In fact, more than 70 countries do not produce any cause of death statistics. In the 21st century, this is a shocking statistic.”

By creating its report on excess mortality, WHO is pursuing several goals, such as urging governments to improve their health-care interventions for vulnerable populations and to adopt more rigorous and transparent reporting standards.

“Knowing how many people died due to the pandemic will help us to be better prepared for the next,” said Samira Asma, WHO’s assistant director-general for data and analytics.

Source: Governments have undercounted the COVID-19 death toll by millions, the WHO says

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Huge Racial Disparities Found in Deaths Linked to Pregnancy

2019/05/09 Leave a comment

Yet another example of racial disparities. Have not seen and comparative Canadian studies and grateful if any readers can direct me accordingly:

African-American, Native American and Alaska Native women die of pregnancy-related causes at a rate about three times higher than those of white women, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday.

The racial disparity has persisted, even grown, for years despite frequent calls to improve access to medical care for women of color. Sixty percent of all pregnancy-related deaths can be prevented with better health care, communication and support, as well as access to stable housing and transportation, the researchers concluded.

“The bottom line is that too many women are dying largely preventable deaths associated with their pregnancy,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the C.D.C.

“We have the means to identify and close gaps in the care they receive,” she added. While not all of the deaths can be prevented, “we can and should do more.”

Maternal health among black women already has emerged as an issue in the 2020 presidential campaign. Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, have both raised the glaring racial discrepancies in maternal outcomes on the campaign trail.

“Everyone should be outraged this is happening in America,” Ms. Harris recently said on Twitter. She blamed the deaths on racial bias in the health system.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which was not involved in the C.D.C. report, recently acknowledged that racial bias within the health care system is contributing to the disproportionate number of pregnancy-related deaths among minority women.

“We are missing opportunities to identify risk factors prior to pregnancy, and there are often delays in recognizing symptoms during pregnancy and postpartum, particularly for black women,” Dr. Lisa Hollier, immediate past president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement.

The United States has an abysmal record on maternal health, compared with other high-income countries. Even as maternal death rates fell by more than one-third from 2000 to 2015 across the world, outcomes for American mothers worsened, according to Unicef.

The C.D.C. examined pregnancy-related deaths in the United States from 2011 to 2015, and also reviewed more detailed data from 2013 to 2017 provided by maternal mortality review committees in 13 states.

The agency found that black women were 3.3 times more likely than white women to suffer a pregnancy-related death; Native American and Alaska Native women were 2.5 times more likely to die than white women.

[The topics new parents are talking about. Evidence-based guidance. Personal stories that matter. Sign up now to get NYT Parenting in your inbox every week.]

Obstetric emergencies involving complications like severe bleeding caused most of the deaths at delivery. Disorders related to high blood pressure accounted for most deaths from the day of delivery through the sixth day postpartum.

A leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths was cardiovascular disease, which is not typically associated with young pregnant women.

Heart disease and strokes caused more than one-third of pregnancy-related deaths, the C.D.C. found. Cerebrovascular events, such as strokes, were the most common cause of death during the first 42 days after the delivery.

Cardiac disease, which disproportionately affects black women, may be present in a woman before pregnancy, but it also may appear during pregnancy. If heart disease goes undetected, it may become acute after the baby is born.

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