The World Health Organization is estimating that nearly 15 million people were killed either by the coronavirus or by its impact on overwhelmed health systems in the past two years. That is more than double its official death toll. The U.N. health agency says most of the fatalities were in Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas. In a report released Thursday, May 5, 2022 WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus describes the figure as “sobering." (AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)
WHO COVID Deaths
LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization is estimating that nearly 15 million people were killed either by the coronavirus or by its impact on overwhelmed health systems in the first two years of the pandemic. That is more than double the current official death toll. The U.N. health agency said in a report released on Thursday that most of the fatalities were in Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas. Accurately counting COVID-19 deaths has been problematic Accurately counting COVID-19 deaths has been problematic as reports of confirmed cases represent only a fraction of the devastation wrought by the virus. That’s largely due to limited testing and the differences in how countries count COVID-19 deaths.
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