There have been 7m-13m excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic
The rich world suffered relatively badly, but most of the dying has been elsewhere
OFFICIAL FIGURES say there have been 55,000 covid deaths in South Africa since March 27th last year. That puts the country’s death rate at 92.7 per 100,000 people, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also a significant underestimate—as, it seems safe to infer, are all the other African data on the disease.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “Counting the dead”
From the May 15th 2021 edition
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