https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/05/23/our-model-suggests-that-global-deaths-remain-5-above-pre-covid-forecasts

 Skip to content

  * Menu
  * Weekly edition
  * The world in brief
  * Search

Log in

  * Opinion

      + Leaders
      + Letters to the editor
      + By Invitation
      + Current topics

          o War in Ukraine
          o Climate change
          o Coronavirus
          o The Biden presidency
          o Recession watch
          o The Economist explains
  * Current topics

      + War in Ukraine
      + Climate change
      + Coronavirus
      + The Biden presidency
      + Recession watch
      + The Economist explains
  * World

      + The world this week
      + China
      + United States
      + Europe
      + Britain
      + Middle East & Africa
      + Asia
      + The Americas
      + International
  * In depth

      + Science & technology
      + Graphic detail
      + Special reports
      + Technology Quarterly
      + The World Ahead
      + Briefing
      + Essay
      + Schools brief
  * Business & economics

      + Finance & economics
      + Business
      + Big Mac index
      + A-Z of economics
      + Economic & financial indicators
  * Culture & society

      + 1843 magazine
      + Culture
      + Obituary
      + The Economist reads
      + Summer reads
      + Christmas Specials
  * More

      + Podcasts
      + Newsletters
      + Films
      + The Economist app
      + Subscriber events
      + Online courses

  * My Economist
  * Saved stories
  * Log out

  * Saved stories
  * Account
  * Log out

Search
[                    ]
Graphic detail | The new normal

Our model suggests that global deaths remain 5% above pre-covid
forecasts

Attributing this increase to covid would make it the fourth-leading
cause of death

May 23rd 2023
Share

On May 5th the World Health Organisation declared an end to the
covid-19 public-health emergency. Based on official mortality counts,
this looked tardy. By April 2022, average weekly death tolls had
already fallen to the level of March 2020.

Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android
.

Your browser does not support the <audio> element.

Such tallies exclude deaths caused by covid but not attributed to it,
however. A better measure is excess mortality, the gap between the
number of deaths from all causes and the amount pre-covid trends
would imply. For countries that do not publish their total number of
deaths, we have built a model to estimate the excess.

This statistic also suggests that covid is killing at a slower,
steadier pace than in 2020-21. Yet endemic covid remains surprisingly
deadly. Amid high uncertainty, our central estimate for the world's
current total mortality rate exceeds projections from 2019 by 5%, or
3m lives per year.

In the past year 16% of estimated excess deaths were officially
attributed to covid, down from 37% in 2021. This gap has grown as
deaths from covid have shifted from rich countries to poor ones. In
2020 the virus hit hardest in the rich world, where relatively old
populations travel often and huddle indoors in cold weather. Such
places also ramped up testing, raising the share of victims counted
in official data.

But in 2021 wealthy states began to turn the tide. Because many of
the vulnerable died early on, and covid survivors gained natural
immunity, their populations became more resilient. They devised and
distributed effective vaccines and treatments, from steroids to new
drugs like Paxlovid.

Meanwhile, the disease worked its way around the world.
Ultra-contagious variants reached rural areas and countries with
tight border controls, like Vietnam. Even China, which often locked
down entire cities, realised it could not control the virus and
scrapped its "zero-covid" policy in 2022. In most poor countries
vaccine take-up remains low, and weak health-care systems raise death
rates for those who fall ill.

Because data on total mortality is scant outside the rich world, our
model's estimates have become less precise over time. Its confidence
interval for the world's current excess-death rate stretches from
near zero all the way up to the estimated levels of mid-2020.
However, excluding the recent surge in China, its best guess for the
past year is around one of every 1m people per day. As a share of
people aged at least 65, excess-death rates in rich countries are
three times lower than elsewhere. But because such places have older
populations, their overall mortality rate is similar.

Covid is not the sole cause of this change. Many countries'
health-care systems remain strained, meaning people miss out on care.
Cases of other diseases that went untreated in 2020-21 are raising
death rates today. But if covid were indeed responsible for the full
increase, it would be tied for the world's fourth-leading cause of
death. At current rates, it would kill more people in the next eight
years than in the past three.#

Chart sources: WHO; UN; The Economist. Read our methodology here, and
inspect all our code, data, and models on GitHub

This article appeared in the Graphic detail section of the print
edition under the headline "The new normal"

The haunting

From the May 27th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition
Share
Reuse this content

More from Graphic detail

[20230603_WOT349]

Russia's missile attacks on Ukraine have been ineffective

Its focus on civilian infrastructure is a sign of strategic failure

[20230527_WOT271]

Satellite data show Ukraine's forces are testing Russia's defences

The attacks may be part of the highly anticipated counter-offensive

---------------------------------------------------------------------
[20230527_WOT960]

How well does your country provide for its citizens?

A global index that attempts to compare people's well-being across
170 countries

---------------------------------------------------------------------

  * Subscribe
  * Group subscriptions
  * Reuse our content
  * The Trust Project
  * Help and contact us

Keep updated

  *  
  *  
  *  
  *  
  *  
  *  

Published since September 1843 to take part in "a severe contest
between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid
ignorance obstructing our progress."

The Economist

  * About
  * Advertise
  * Press centre

The Economist Group

  * The Economist Group
  * Economist Intelligence
  * Economist Impact
  * Economist Events
  * Working Here
  * Economist Education Courses
  * Which MBA?
  * Executive Jobs
  * Executive Education Navigator

  * Terms of Use
  * Privacy
  * Cookie Policy
  * Manage Cookies
  * Accessibility
  * Modern Slavery Statement
  * Sitemap
  * California: Do Not Sell My Personal Information

Copyright (c) The Economist Newspaper Limited 2023. All rights
reserved.