15 million deaths

Covid-19 led to 15 million deaths globally, not the 5m reported - World Health Organisation

There were 14.9 million excess deaths associated with Covid-19 by the end of 2021, the UN body said on Thursday.

The official count of deaths directly attributable to Covid-19 and reported to WHO in that period, from January 2020 to the end of December 2021, is slightly more than 5.4m.

The WHO's excess mortality figures reflect people who died of Covid-19 as well as those who died as an indirect result of the outbreak, including people who could not access healthcare for other conditions when systems were overwhelmed during huge waves of infection.