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Five years ago, during this time, the COVID-19 pandemic was at its deadliest with the Delta variant laying its death trap. While people have stopped counting the dead, the question remains: How many people died in the pandemic?
On May 13, 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) released the “World Health Statistics 2026”. Inside it lies buried an update on the human toll of the pandemic.
Till now seven million deaths were attributed to COVID-19. Using the excess death data, and improved methodology to estimate, the WHO annual report says, “From 2020 to 2023, global excess deaths from all causes were estimated at 22.1 million, compared with 7.0 million reported COVID-19 deaths. This implies that for every reported COVID-19 death, there were around two additional excess deaths related to the pandemic.”
Excess death is defined as the difference in the total number of deaths in a crisis compared to those expected under normal conditions.
The new estimate not just includes the deaths directly attributed to the novel coronavirus but also the indirect deaths “driven by health care disruptions, economic challenges and other social factors during this period”.
Read Down To Earth's pandemic coverage here
Starting with the declaration of the pandemic in 2020, WHO tracked the excess deaths as well as the direct deaths from COVID-19 till 2023. Its trend shows excess deaths picked up as the pandemic progressed.
“Over time, the ratio of excess deaths to reported COVID-19 deaths increased markedly,” says the WHO updated data captured in the latest report. In 2020, the ratio of excess death to reported COVID-19 death was 1:1. It rose to 9 in 2023. In 2021, the excess death rose to its peak at 10.4 million — attributed to the new variants like Delta and also to the collapse of health systems. It declined to 3.3 million in 2023.
“In 2021, this increase appears to have been driven by a high proportion of indirect deaths due to strains on health care, although underreporting also played an important role,” shows the “World Health Statistics 2026”.
However, WHO says, “After 2022, when many countries stopped widespread testing, the further increase in the ratio of excess deaths to reported COVID-19 deaths seems to be increasingly attributable to underreporting.”
