Statistics show that the confirmed number of global deaths from COVID-19 approached 2 million as of Thursday. But experts say the actual number of victims caused by the pandemic may be closer to 3 million.
According to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal, COVID-19 indirectly and directly contributed to an overall increase in deaths that rose 12% above average last year.
Experts say less than two-thirds of the excess recorded deaths were attributable to COVID-19, but most were disease-related, especially in the early months when testing and treatment were scarce. In addition, researchers found that many people died from medical conditions not directly related to coronavirus, but from other causes such as Alzheimer’s disease and fatal heart attacks, as people shunned medical checkups. and emergency room visits for fear of becoming infected.
Researchers in the journal collected data on the number of deaths from all causes in the countries that compiled these records. They found an additional 821,000 deaths in these nations that were not reported in their COVID-19 mortality figures. Typically, the countries accounted for by the Journal would have had 15 million deaths last year according to previous statistics. Instead, they reported about 17 million fatalities.
Tracking these figures is vital to understanding the far-reaching effects of the pandemic. While an increase in heart disease may be related to COVID-19, an increase in cancer may indicate that people are afraid to go to the hospital, said Colin Mathers, a former World Health Organization analyst. health.
Medical tests collapsed during the first months of the coronavirus outbreak. Komodo Health, which has a large database of medical claims, said cervical cancer tests fell 68%, cholesterol panels fell 67% and blood sugar tests to detect and control diabetes fell 65% in the US
Millions of Americans postponed critical tests as residents obeyed home stay orders, according to Fox News.
“We’re seeing a big impact on preventative care,” Dr. Komodo Health Executive, Dr. Arif Nathoo. “It talks a lot about the amount of COVID that affects everyone’s health and well-being.”
Dr. David Tom Cooke, head of general thoracic surgery at the University of California, Davis, told Reuters that while his cancer patients receive treatment, he worries that new cancers will not be detected until they are more advanced and less treatable.
“We’re not doing cancer tests, such as mammography for breast cancer and lung cancer screening,” he said. “We are concerned that we are delaying standard treatment care for patients with potentially curable cancers.”
According to the newspaper, the toll of the countries analyzed in the document showed an “impressive human loss, even before accounting for all the deaths from the year-end increase in COVID-19 cases.” While some countries, such as Norway and New Zealand, showed a negative excess of deaths last year, these were the exceptions. Researchers say these countries managed to contain the virus effectively through behavioral changes that may have positively affected their mortality rate.
In the United States, the Journal reports that there were 475,000 excess deaths last year through early December, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This included 281,000 casualties attributed to COVID-19 over the same time period, resulting in a 10% increase in mortality. Typically, mortality rates in America increase by 1.6% annually.
The death toll continues to rise as the countries analyzed by the journal report an additional 444,000 deaths from COVID-19 through early 2021.
“The last word will not be known for a couple of years, when the full analysis of all causes of death is completed,” said Mathers, who retired from the Mortality and Disease Analysis Unit. WHO health in 2018.
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