Covid claimed over 3 million lives in 2020

GENEVA: The coronavirus pandemic claimed more than 3 million excess deaths, or 1.2 million more than officially reported, in the year 2020, according to a new report by the World Health Organisation on Friday.

While the WHO's official death toll due to COVID-19 is around 3.4 million so far, the actual number could be at least 6-8 million, showed the global health body's annual World Health Statistics report 2021.

"This number would truly be two to three times higher. So I think safely about 6-to-8 million deaths could be an estimate on a cautionary note," WHO's Assistant Director General for Data and Analytics, Samira Asma, was quoted as saying at a virtual briefing. The current estimate can be explained by under-reporting by countries on the number of infections and deaths tolls, the WHO report said. IANS

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