First we had the Economist claiming to be able to work out how many had really died in the pandemic, then the Lancet joined in. Now it’s the turn of the World Health Organisation. While the Economist and Lancet claim the true toll is around 18 million (though find a very different distribution across countries), the WHO goes for 15 million. Once more we find that the (massive) gaps in reported data are filled in with modelling: “The methods rely on a statistical model derived using information from countries with adequate data; the model is used to generate estimates for countries with little or no data available.”
The estimates for India are particularly inflated and have drawn sharp criticism from the Indian Government. The WHO claims that India experienced 3,400 deaths per million over the two years (note the figures quoted in most reports as WHO estimates for 2020-21 are an average of the two years), which amounts to 4.69 million total deaths – almost a third of the global total. That’s nearly 10 times more than India’s official Covid death toll.
India’s official Covid death toll in 2020 is 148,994. The Government said this week that its official estimate of additional deaths in 2020 compared to 2019 is 474,806, which is 3.2 times higher than the official Covid toll. It hasn’t yet provided its estimate for additional deaths in 2021, but we know that the official Covid death toll for 2021 is 332,492. If we assume the same degree of undercounting then the number of additional deaths in 2021 would be 1.06 million. (Note that India has around 10 million deaths each year, so this represents about a 10% excess mortality in 2021.) Adding the two together gives 1.54 million additional deaths for 2020 and 2021. The WHO’s estimate of 4.69 million is three times higher than this. No wonder the Indian Government is disputing the findings.
Looking just at 2020, the WHO estimates 600 excess deaths per million, whereas the Indian Government reports 474,806, which is 344 per million – almost half the number.
For 2021, India’s official Covid death toll is 2.2 times higher than in 2020 (332,492 vs 148,994). However, the WHO’s estimate of excess deaths is 4.7 times higher for 2021 than 2020 (2,800 vs 600 per million). This means the WHO thinks India’s undercounting became more than twice as bad in 2021 compared to 2020. These are not small differences and it’s hard to see them as plausible.
Another curiosity is Germany. According to Our World in Data, Germany had excess deaths of 1,080 per million in 2020-21. Yet according to the WHO, the figure is 2,330 per million. Why is the WHO saying Germany’s excess deaths are well over double the OWID estimate? It means Germany moves from having half the excess deaths of the U.K. to being worse. Germany has very complete records of deaths, so there is no excuse for this kind of discrepancy.

Once again, these estimated, modelled figures are looking very dubious.
Like the Lancet study, the WHO’s estimates make restriction-lite Sweden look good and lockdown heavy countries like Peru look bad, so for sceptics it is tempting to see them as a good thing. And of course, it’s nice suddenly to be better than Germany.
However, we shouldn’t pick our data based on what best supports our argument but on what is most plausible and likely to be true. And as the Indian Government has pointed out, that is not this dubious set of modelled estimates from the WHO.


Discussion
Comments
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Call me old fashioned, but if you are trying to force reality to fit to a model, I suspect there might be a little problem somewhere.
Firstly Sweden didn’t ‘gamble’, they made a reasoned set of choices. Second, there haven’t been 15 million deaths as Johns Hopkins Covid Map is showing just over 6 million. The WHO also claim that of the 15 million, 5 million died in India. The Johns Hopkins Covid Map shows India with just over 600 thousand and the Indian Government is not happy with the WHO.
“If there is something very slightly wrong in our definition of the theories, then the full mathematical rigor may convert these errors into ridiculous conclusions.” – R. Feynman
Stick your finger somewhere moist ( you know where ) and hold it up in the wind and what have you got?
An estimate way more accurate than this rubbish.
The WHO need disbanding, they’re completely useless.
A model can be tuned to give whatever result you want…and nature will studiously ignore it 100% of the time.
The WHO is just another truly evil organisation seeking to destroy life as we knew it and fulfill the population reduction policy of the UN.
Have a read of this festering pile of Big Pharma endorsed lies from the British Bullshit Corporation.
it reads like a sales pitch for Pfizer. And this organisation is funded with public money strong armed out of the UK population.
This shouldn’t be referred as dubious. The correct term is fraudulent. They made this up because it’s politically convenient for them. That they did so in a complicated with a computer program is just smoke and mirrors.
It’s also easy to see why they’re hammering Germany: Germany is pretty much still operating in pandemic emergency mode and had much stricter Corona measures than the UK throughout the time. Hence, it’s conjectured to be a soft target for an Earlier! Harder! Longer! message.
This comment is to establish whether or not I am a simpleton. I thought covid 19 was a made up disease/test, therefore both death and vaccination against are impossibilities. What exactly are we now counting?
Counting the hours and days to the “Great Reset ” Global Coup of course!
That’s funny.
Does the Great Reset follow on from the Great Inflation and begin with a letter from the government? Hello Sir, Are you struggling with your bills? Would you like a universal basic income?
You are most likely closer to the truth than you probably know
It would create the biggest black market the world has ever seen.
How so?
People would begin bartering and trading with alternative currencies.
Just like they did in the last world war – apparently it was rife across the ROI/NI border.
Even if we accept the 15million, that is still only 0.1% per epidemic year out of 7.5billion. In other words, even including the deaths caused by the lockup … it was no worse than flu.
Plus that number is classing the ventilator killings and the Remdesivir/Midazolam killings as if they were the virus.
I’m probably misquoting Gnobels here but didn’t he say:”If you are going to tell lies, don’t tell little ones, tell big ones, you are more likely to be believed”.
PS: Apologies for even misspelling his name.
The Worldometer website which complies – accurately so far – deaths as reported to them by Governments, is showing a global total of just over 6.2 million.
Indian death total: 523 975.
We are in the derrière covering phase of the panicdemic. As more and more evidence emerges they all lied about everything, they have moved on from anger and denial to justification.
They don’t understand that all but the usual fools don’t believe them anymore, so they might as well let it rest.
Approx 70 million people globally perish each year of all causes. Most, if not all deaths from CoVid, are deaths that would have occurred anyway from other causes such as ‘flu or comorbidities.
They could just as easily say it’s 30 million or 300 million – total fiction, but the media doesn’t care.
Give these lunatics unrestricted access to pencils and paper, and ban them from ever going near a spreadsheet or database.
Sweden’s approach was right without the need to play around with figures that make no sense. We do not know how many people died of or even with Covid and never will. However, it suits certain agendas to promote the idea that we faced the biggest threat since the Spanish Flu of 1918. It justifies the lockdowns. Inadequate health care, and normal trends plus the extra ones caused by lockdowns are likely to be the main cause of the spike in excess deaths. Deep down the promoters of the Covid frenzy know this to be true but to admit it would call into question their entire world view. As for the modellers, their profession needs to be downgraded. Messing about with numbers without an evidence base is not science.
WITH or OF, rather like WITH or OF pneumonia or other end of life conditions
Gates has “form” in India…isn’t there a criminal case running against him for previous ‘experiments’?
https://indianbarassociation.in/more-trouble-for-bill-gates-and-adar-poonawalla/
MORE TROUBLE FOR BILL GATES AND ADAR POONAWALLA
No immunity to vaccine companies – Central Government tells Supreme Court in its affidavit before the Supreme Court.
It is a major setback to the toxic philanthropist and vaccine mafia’s Kingpin Bill Gates and his partner Adar Poonawalla, and other co-accused who have been prosecuted for mass murders through vaccines.They are also charged for offences of cheating public at large with false narratives and conspiracy theories.
The Central Government in its affidavit dated 29th Nov 2021 filed before Supreme Court of India in a petition filed by Dr.JacobPuliyel vs. Union of India Writ Petition (C) No. 607 of 2021,had made it clear that the Government has not granted any protection / immunity from prosecution to the vaccine companies.
The relevant para 65 reads thus;
“VIII.INDEMNIFICATION OF VACCINE MANUFACTURERS
65. No indemnity has been granted and the current legal regime under the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, 2019 and Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 does not contain any such provisions.”
Tell me it ain’t so! Surely we’re the only ones promoting conspiracy theories like masks don’t work, lockdowns don’t work, social distancing is a joke, ‘vaccines’ are neither safe nor effective.
Silly 1.5Bn Indians, imagine accusing the nice Mr. Gates of being a conspiracy theorist.
Very important post – it should have the widest possible circulation.
This is the man who wants to snatch power over our “health”, force endless experimental products into us and over-ride our Human Right to Bodily Autonomy, granted under the Nuremberg Code!
Who could possibly object? Certainly not Boris Johnson,who has his pen poised ready to sign!
Good Lord – a government with a set of balls.
Rarer than a set of hen’s teeth.
Even if you take these numbers at face value, how about we go back through the time of all human existence.
Imagine how many extra people could be on this Earth had a few more of those people not died. Would the world be a better or worse place?
Nobody really cares, some people will pretend they care more than everyone else but they’ll be getting on with their lives just the same as everyone.
That’s the way it is, always has been and always will be.
Is that what you do when a relative dies, just pretend to care?
Do you care about every death? Does it stop you living your life?
I grieve then move on. That’s life. I certainly don’t pretend to care about the deaths of people I don’t know.
So some people do actually care, imagine that.
Care about everything or just some things? Presumably you’ll be eating your dinner later or will the thought of millions dead have ruined your appetite?
No great loss anyway if it’s true
I bet the WHO are taking China’s figures without quibble.
Gates is a great admirer of China! Who knew? WHO did know!
Who WHO…..🦉
Is it more frightening with musical accompaniment?
Ahh, crap. Wrong link. Try this one.
Oh, more fraudulent bullshit just when they’re trying to install their one world government; how surprising.
I don’t think Mr. Putin nor Mr. Xi will be taking orders from Mr. Schwab any time soon. Then there’s Mr. Modi of India who refuses to condemn Mr. Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.
So that’s only about 3.5Bn of the global populace who won’t be conforming to the New ‘World’ Order.
Maybe Klaus ‘Walter Mitty’ Schwab actually means The Half New World Order.
The greatest con man since Bernie Madoff.
Looks like an impending E/W economic and political split – the W bit would have been limited to Europe at most if Trump hadn’t been bumped off.
Like a sort of EU 4th Reich with tentacles to Australia, Canada and NZ. Very little of Africa seems to be interested.
There are nearly 30 countries supporting Putin, including India.
The idiots in the west somehow believe the Biden crime syndicate is somehow credible.
In other words, a club of countries with no natural resources and no industrial output. Yay for the New World Order!
Considering that most of the world seems to be determined not to join it they are going to struggle with their “New World Order” – it is going to be a bit of a misnomer if they cannot force whole world to join.
Maybe we should be more optimistic than we have been.
When these Covid mortality figures include anyone who’s tested positive for Covid then subsequently died in a tuk-tuk crash or whose parachute has failed to open on a New Zealand sky dive then we are living in clown world and none of these Gates funded arseholes should be trusted to announce a bus timetable.
The biggest Clown of all is in Downing Street with “Emergency Powers” granted by our zero integrity Parliament to do whatever he pleases ( which appears to be ‘stuff it to us’!)!
Following election results announced today, and the soon to be released full Sue Gray report, I thing teetering on the brink is a masterly understatement of the buffoons position.
I could have tolerated the idiot other than his NetZero obsession.
The is a scandal. So all this time Germany has covered up their true Covid death toll?
I expect to see arrests. Pitchforks on the autobahn.
Well no. In fact what these sort of exercises demonstrate is that in trying to justify their policies, with questionable methods, they shoot themselves in the foot. For if all these Covid deaths did go undetected and, thanks to the sainted modellers we can see the light, then now what? Shouldn’t there be a criminal investigation into who is engaged in this data fraud – the doctors, the politicians and the rest.
Of course, that doesn’t happen. That is not the intention at all. It’s about ensuring they cover themselves in glory and are cleansed of all wrongs.
So WHO claim India had 5 million excess deaths contrary to India’s own figures yet don’t question China on their numbers, -2 for China looks improbably low.
China’s data – or lack of – has been one huge elephant in the room but no one seems remotely bothered, yet one by one nearly every country followed their lead.
If your on an ocean liner in the middle of the ocean and see the crew suddenly donning their life jackets and abandoning ship while no alarms are raised and they are saying there is no problem would you also do what they are doing?
I think I would, just to be on the safe side. Certainly once the crisis is other I’d expect some answers.
delete
“Don’t worry, it’s just a drill.”
Is Gate actually allowed into India?
Absolutely. They await him with open arms, and shackles……..
You do not ‘do analsyis’ based on modelled data. You do it based on rigorously collected, validated and audited data.
If the WHO doesn’t know that, it is no longer a fit and proper organisation to be looked up to where health is concerned.
I propose a referendum whereby the continued funding of the WHO by UK taxpayers is brought into question…..
Was it ever?
you beat me to it RHS!!!
~winking, as he gently blows away a wisp of smoke curling from the barrel of his Colt Peacemaker~
Gotta be up early son……..
We should simply leave – today!
Re. South Asia
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1087542
The UN estimates 228 000 deaths of children due to ‘covid disruption’ – ie lockdown – in 2020.
Re. Germany:
Germany had approximately 3 million covid ‘cases’ in 2020.
However, the death rate in every age group was lower in 2020 than the average of the death rate for the previous 4 years, with only 2019 being a touch lower.
Here are the figures for the over-80s, where you can see that the death rate for this age group in 2020 was lower than in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
https://twitter.com/SHomburg/status/1445441863645863939/photo/1
Wording is German but the graph is understandable I think.
This means that 3 million covid ‘cases’ had no effect on the death rate. Therefore there was no excess mortality due to covid, or indeed due to anything in 2020.
Covidians can’t claim this was due to prevention because 3 million cases occurred anyway. If 3 million cases have no effect on the death rate, then why should four million?
The situation was the same in every age group.
In Germany any ‘excess deaths’ in 2020 were due to an aging population.
https://twitter.com/SHomburg/status/1468909859332575234/photo/1
Here you can see that there was no excess mortality in Germany in 2020. The higher number of deaths was entirely due to the aging population and was in trend.
“Cases” Drosten PCR “cases’!
15 million isn’t much!
We could say 15 million died as a result of taking the ‘Covid vaccines’ and say “Hardly the Black Death, is it?”
Hardly the Black Death. More like the Holocaust.
The two scenarios are not comparable – conceptually, nor ethically. Consider for a minute that we can divide our demise into two general categories: “it happens” and “it was done to me/you/them”. It’s not too difficult so sort all deaths into either class, with some instances having a foot in both camps. So i) I fall down the stairs and break my neck, or develop aggressive cancer; or ii) I get mugged and stabbed, or I walk out in front of a car whilst engaged with my mobile phone, or a fairground ride fails because it’s not been inspected nor serviced for 20 years; or, iii) I walk out in front of a car whilst engaged with my mobile phone but the driver was doing 60 in a 30 mph zone.
The trouble with the the government and the MSM and social media’s general take on Covid-19 that it has re-framed a disease that would normally fall into the “it happens” death class as “it was done to me/you/them”, and for a disease that is quite benign for the majority. We all know the rest: hysteria and overreaction and overreach. And this allowed the government and the MSM and social media… Read more »
That’s because so many people wore a mask to protect their mates. Who knows how many deaths were prevented by wearing a Chinese rag on your face? And many, many more by shutting down the economy.
How many deaths from lockdown?
Quite a few. And also mental damage. I should think “Long Lockdown” is more damaging than “Long Covid”.
Absolutely. Especially given that the cultism behind lockdown hasn’t gone away and is the same false premise behind green ideology.
Let me model that.
“The Computer says”……..Zero.
Yes, based on the fantasies fed into the computer by the Piltdown Man Hoaxers masquerading as scientists.
~Sharp intake of breath~ Shush man, do you want us all branded as conspiracy theorists?
Conspiracy theories depend entirely on there being no evidence to support them, that’s why the conspiracy theorist either demands you make the case for them or they talk as if their claims were self-evident, as obvious as the beards of Brian Blessed and ZZ Top.
By contrast, the utterly innumerate fantasies of SAGE, the heirs of both Trofim Lysenko and the Piltdown Man Hoaxer are well-documented, Fraser Nelson accidentally got one of them to expose himself, as it were.
I was kidding.
Yes, I know
In the WHO’s world, India’s “performance” needs to be trashed because they dared to use Ivermectin.
My default: if the WHO say something …… it’s bollocks.
The WHO is a corrupt, criminal and useless organisation. Do I detect the Hand of Ferguson in this latest outpouring of lying, twisted drivel?
No, you detect the scarcely hidden hand of William Gates III.
I was thinking more of the “modelling” aspect, and the modeller, rather than the megalomaniac, billionaire supposed “health expert” you mention i.e. he who pays the piper, calls the WHO tune.
And his abominable software, culprit of all modelling, the Excel spreadsheet.
What few people are aware of is that it’s riddles with errors.
I was examining numbers whilst the director of communications for a section of Merck. Applying simple logic and a bit of arithmetic I realised the columns weren’t adding up correctly, not just by degrees, these were wildly inaccurate and being used for serious decision making.
I trawled the massive spreadsheet, it took me days, and found individual cells with small errors which cascaded down the entire document.
I reported it all to our financial director (actually a decent bloke) and he simply said “it will be ignored because the end result suits their purposes”.
And he was right. No matter who I spoke to, no one was the least bit interested.
Gates has been hiding his ‘plan ‘for world population in plain sight for decades.
Just like Hitler, they always tell you exactly what they are going to do.
You mad conspiracy theorist! How dare you listen to what they actually say, and then articulate it.
Are you a *’far right’ Nazi or something?
Footnote:
*In the interest of disclosure and historical accuracy, Nazi’s were ‘far left’, just like nearly every violent despot in history. Trump, for example, is ‘far right’ – In other words, a member of a community which prefers peaceful and profitable trade to beating each others brains out.