Up to three times more people have died due to the pandemic than indicated by the officially reported Covid-19 deaths, the World Health Organization has said.
The WHO Assistant Director-General in charge of data said "total deaths are at least 2-3 times higher than officially reported" as the UN health agency released an annual report on global health statistics.
In 2020, it found there had been at least three million excess deaths due directly or indirectly to Covid-19, while the official number of Covid-19 deaths was 1.8 million at the end of the year. "We are likely facing a significant undercount of total deaths directly and indirectly attributed to Covid-19," the WHO said.