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DAR YASIN/AP
Nearly 15 million people died as a result of Covid-19 in the first two years of the pandemic, the World Health Organization estimated in a report released Thursday. That figure is 2.7 times higher than the 5.4 million deaths that governments around the world reported to the global health agency for that period.
The WHO analysis used mathematical modeling to calculate “excess mortality” for 2020 and 2021 — ascribing to the pandemic deaths that were over and above what had been seen in the years leading up to the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That means the estimate, 14.9 million, includes both deaths caused by Covid and those that resulted from the fact that the tsunami of Covid cases at times rendered health systems incapable of meeting other needs.