‘At least three million died from COVID-19 in 2020’

[NEW DELHI] By the end of 2020, COVID-19 had claimed the lives of more than three million people worldwide, representing 1.2 million more deaths than officially reported earlier, says a newly released report by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The revised figures, based on excess mortality estimates produced for 2020, indicate a serious undercount of total deaths directly or indirectly attributable toCOVID-19.

WHO’sWorld Health Statistics report 2021主要强调不平等获取COVID-19 vaccines. It said that “fair and equitable access to the vaccines is far from being achieved, and the inequality across income groups is pronounced with only one per cent of doses going to low [income] countries as compared to the 19 per cent administered in lower-middle-income countries, 33 per cent in upper-middle-income countries and 47 per cent in high-income countries as of 1 May 2021”.

COVID-19 substantially threatened populationhealthand well-being across the world. Also, universal health coverage faced “the greatest risk of falling behind” with 90 per cent of countries affected by disruptions in essential health services, the report said.

Covid-19罢工vulnerablepopulations “disproportionately” with people living in overcrowded settings at high risk, said the report. It also delineates inadequacy relating todatadisaggregation (detailed sub-categorisation of data) which contributes to unequal health outcomes.

According to the report, “[High-quality] disaggregated data for monitoring health inequalities and for ensuring equitable health service access and uptake are lacking worldwide…[only] 51 per cent of 133 studied countries include data disaggregation in published national health statistical reports, ranging from 63 per cent in [high-income countries] to only 46–50 per cent for other income groups.”

Brian Wahl, an epidemiologist at the Department of International Health,Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, US, tellsSciDev.Net: “In the last year, we have seen [multiple] ways in which COVID-19 has disproportionately affected vulnerable populations, including essential workers and those with limited access tomedical服务。”

“我们永远不会知道大流行对人类健康的确切影响。However, the estimates released by WHO of excess deaths for 2020 are helpful for beginning to wrap our heads around this difficult issue,” he comments.

“The estimates released by WHO of excess deaths for 2020 are helpful for beginning to wrap our heads around this difficult issue”

布莱恩Wahl,约翰霍普金斯大学彭博学校出版的ic Health

Thekkekara Jacob John, a top virologist and former professor of clinical virology at theChristian Medical College, Vellore, India, says the report contains two clear messages. “One is the sheer, staggering magnitude of the number of deaths. The second message is that there is no way to collect reasonably accurate numbers,” he tellsSciDev.Net.

Madhukar Pai, Canada Research Chair in Translational Epidemiology and Global Health,McGill University, Montreal, Canada, notes that the WHO report provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the world’s health.

“这份报告最清醒的发现是真正的死亡Covid-19。所有国家必须更加努力地改善死亡的报告，因为这是全球健康中最重要的指标之一。”SciDev.Net.

On a positive note, the report showed significant improvement in global life expectancy at birth — from 66.8 years in 2000 to 73.3 years in 2019. The improvement was attributed to rapid decrease inchildmortality and communicablediseases, with low- and middle-income countries the greatest gainers.

This article was written by SciDev.Net’s Asia Pacific desk and edited for clarity.