Death toll at start of Covid-19 pandemic likely higher than US count, study says

A new study using artificial intelligence estimates that roughly 155,000 Covid-19 deaths went unrecognized during 2020 and 2021, suggesting the official US death toll was significantly undercounted. Researchers found these unreported deaths likely occurred outside hospitals and were not identified as Covid-related on death certificates, representing approximately 16% of total pandemic mortality during that period. The finding underscores how the early pandemic response failed to capture deaths in certain settings, potentially among vulnerable populations with limited access to testing and medical care. Official counts reported about 840,000 Covid deaths on death certificates in those two years, but the study suggests the true number was substantially higher. The research highlights gaps in pandemic surveillance systems and raises questions about the completeness of mortality data used to assess the pandemic's full public health impact.