Global excess deaths associated with COVID-19 (modelled estimates)

The World Health Organization has been tracking the impact of COVID-19 as the pandemic has evolved over time.

Aggregate case and death numbers are being reported to the WHO. These data do not always provide a complete picture of the health burden attributable to COVID-19 nor of how many lives have been lost due to the pandemic, and there are a number of reasons for this. Some deaths that are attributable to COVID-19 have not been certified as such because tests had not been conducted prior to death. There have also been variations in the death certification rules countries have applied in the presence of comorbidities and COVID-19.

The impact of the pandemic is far reaching. Beyond the deaths directly attributable to it are those that can be linked to the conditions that have prevailed since the pandemic began and have led to some health systems being overwhelmed or some patients avoiding healthcare. In light of the challenges posed by using reported COVID-19 data, excess mortality is considered a more objective and comparable measure. The WHO defines excess mortality as "the mortality above what would be expected based on the non-crisis mortality rate in the population of interest".

The harmonized methods for excess mortality that help determine the total number of direct and indirect deaths associated with COVID-19 have been developed in collaboration with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), and in accordance with the WHO Regulations for Scientific and Advisory Groups.

WHO convened a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on COVID-19 Mortality Assessment to develop the methodology. The COVID TAG is comprised of leading demographers, epidemiologists, data and social scientists and statisticians from a range of backgrounds and geographies.

These estimates supersede the previous estimates published in May 2022.

This work is a collaborative process to determine excess direct and indirect mortality associated with COVID-19, supported by the work of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for COVID-19 Mortality Assessment appointed jointly by the WHO and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). The TAG proposed a method for generating estimates of  excess mortality on global, regional and national levels. The model generates estimates for countries for which adequate input data were available for reliable inference and to then predict estimates for countries with no data available.

WHO conducted a country consultation with Member States in January - March 2023 to review the draft estimates, data sources and methods. Countries were also asked to provide advice on primary data sources that may not have been previously reported or used, and share inputs or additional feedback.

The estimates will continue to be updated in consultation with countries as the pandemic evolves and more data becomes available.

The estimates presented here may differ from, and should not be regarded as, the official national statistics of individual WHO Member States.

World Health Organization 2023, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO

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5 May 2022

On 5 May 2022, the World Health Organization released global, regional and country estimates of excess mortality associated with COVID-19 pandemic for a 24-month period (January 2020 to December 2021). These estimates can be found here.

20 May 2021

On 20 May 2021, the World Health Organization released a preliminary global estimate for the total number of excess deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, with accompanying preliminary estimates for the WHO Region of the Americas and WHO Region for Europe. These initial estimates can be found here.