Global Covid-19 death toll ‘may be three times higher than official figures’

Researchers studying excess deaths' estimate that more than 18 million people died of disease by end of 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic may have claimed 18.2 million lives around the world, more than three times the official death toll, a new study suggests.

The higher figure is a better estimate of the true global casualty figure to the end of 2021, according to an analysis by a consortium of health researchers published in the Lancet.