Thank you.
Judy: Nearly 15 million people
around the world have died from
the impact of covid directly or
indirectly during the first two
years of the pandemic.
That is the estimate from a new
report by the world health
organization.
It is also nearly three times
higher than governments have
reported publicly so far.
William brangham has more about
these findings.
>> While the study is still
being examined and debated, a
few things are clear.
These deaths occurred more often
with men and they hit older
people particularly hard with p2
percent of people 80 -- --
these deaths were not filled
equally around the world.
Most were concentrated in low to
middle income nations.
Running me now is Jonathan
Wakefield.
He is a biostatistician at the
university of Washington at his
modeling work help to the W.H.O.
Produce this report.
Very good to have you on the
newshour.
These numbers are just so
jarring.
This is three times the number
of people believed to have died
during this pandemic and we
previously thought.
I wonder if you could reflect on
that initially.
Were you struck by the disparity
here how many lives we are
talking about?
>> Yes, I was.
It is an absolute tragedy.
I was also struck by -- there
was an extra 13% more deaths
than we expected to see.
That really struck me as a huge
number.
13% more died during the
pandemic and that is an
incredible number.
>> It is the population of a
small nation.
This data rests on this idea of
excess deaths.
That may be an unfamiliar
concept to some people.
What do excess its mean and how
you -- and how do you go about
measuring them?
>> The excess is the difference
between the number of people who
died and the number of people we
would have expected to die if
the pandemic had not occurred.
Way we go about that, we take
data from those countries who
supply data and use that.
The countries with no data, we
formulate a model and use
country characteristics such as
temperature and containment
measures to predict the number
we would have expected to see.
>> There is also something
indirect deaths.
It is not just people who died
of covid but who might have died
because they did not go and get
hospital care during the
pandemic?
>> Exactly.
Health care avoidance because of
the pandemic.
We don't know the numbers yet,
the proportions.
Our indirect deaths from other
causes.
>> There are inns -- are there
instances where the pandemic
might have prevented some people
from dying from being on the
roads less or things like that?
>> Some countries like new
Zealand and Australia did see a
negative excess for reasons you
say like road accidents or other
communicable diseases.
Even countries with a large
access.
Some wives were probably saved.
It is why the excess is a good
number because it shows us the
true extent of the pandemic.
>> This report also teases out
the disparities between official
death counts and what your data
indicate are the actual death
counts.
I am trying to understand how
those disparities come.
Are they from intentional
underreporting?
Are they from countries that
don't to a good job of gathering
data?
Help me understand that.
>> It is a mixture and I am not
in the business of say which
governments I think were
suppressing information but when
the health systems are
understrength, even under the
best of times it is difficult to
record deaths.
When health systems are under
strain and energy has been
pulling to try to save lives,
then that situation is
exacerbated.
>> I was interested to see that
your report looks at rates of
deaths in relation to the per
capita size of nations.
There was the U.S., the U.K.,
Germany and Spain on that list
but nations like Peru.
How do you understand that data?
>> Because -- the largest -- the
country with the largest access
is India with 4.7 million excess
deaths India second largest
country in the world.
Looking at the rate of deaths
per 100,000, which is the
standard way we do that, that
allows us to compare between
countries.
Peru came out with a high rate
which is a tragedy.
>> This may seem self-evident to
you but I am curious what you
think of as the main import of
your research.
We know covid is a real killer.
We know vaccinating the world
globally is the way to get
through this pandemic but what
does this research add to our
understanding?
>> On one level, morally
speaking, I think every death
should be recorded.
Out of respect to them and their
families, I think it is
important we count those people.
On public health grounds, it is
important to know how many
people died.
The estimate by month.
We can look at the deaths by
month and look at which measures
were in place at the time.
That may help us in the future
to try to avoid deaths both as
the covid pandemic continues and
for other pandemics.
>> Thank you so much for being
here.
Judy: One other important
development.
Late today, the food and drug
administration announced it will
no longer allow Americans to get
the Johnson & Johnson vaccine
unless they are not able to
receive any of the other
approved covid vaccines.
The move comes after the fda
determined the risk of blood
clots from the j&j vaccine while
still rare quote warrants
limiting the authorized use of
the vaccine.