The true number of victims of coronavirus in the world is approximately 17 million people, not 5 million, as official statistics show. Russian BBC service writes that the Economist magazine analytics analysts came to this conclusion.
It is noted that for the first time journalists drew attention to oddities in counting in March 2020. Then, in a number of areas of the Italian province Bergamo, 1,140 deaths were registered, and the total mortality rate compared to the same period of the previous year, according to Italian statistical bureaus, increased by 2,420. At the same time, the number of deaths from natural reasons remained at about the same level. Thus, almost 1,300 people were inexplicable.
Next analysts Economist revealed the same shortcomings in the data on the UK, USA, Spain and other countries.
In the publication, there are several reasons for such inconsistencies: first, in many countries the mortality rate was carried out in direct dependence on the results of testing patients, and only those who were diagnosed with COVID-19 during their lifetime. People who died due to other reasons associated with coronavirus, and those who simply did not have time to diagnose, fell into another statistical category.
Secondly, many countries simply cannot lead accurate statistics or do not want to publish it. In Bulgaria, according to analysts, Economist, official data on cowid mortality is two times lower than in reality. In Russia, statistics are reduced by 3.5 times, in India – ten.
It makes shape, writes the publication that the data is mainly underestimated in countries with the least resources to deal with a pandemic. This, in turn, prevents the rest of the world to understand and analyze the true scale of the pandemic and its impact on all spheres of our life.
In its own counting, which gave the result of 17 million people, Economist relied on a number of well-known methods, in particular, the method of counting the dead from wars.