Covid’s Death Toll is Worse Than We Thought

In their study published in the Lancet last week, researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington pointed to a lack of testing and unreliable mortality data to explain the discrepancy with official estimates of roughly 5.9 million deaths. They found Covid drove a 17% jump in deaths worldwide.

“At the global level, this is quite the biggest mortality shock since the Spanish flu,” Christopher J.L. Murray, the director of the Seattle-based institute, told me.