First 3 years of COVID-19 had 3M excess deaths in the West: study

'Excess mortality has remained high in the Western world for three consecutive years, despite the implementation of containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines,' researchers say.

The first three years of the COVID-19 pandemic had more than three million excess deaths in Western countries, a new study says, raising “serious concerns.”

The research published in the BMJ Public Health journal Monday showed that between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2022, a total of 3,089,465 excess deaths were reported in 47 countries in the West, including Canada.

Excess mortality reflects data about the number of deaths that exceed what is expected or considered normal during a given period.

The first full year of the pandemic had more than 1.03 million excess deaths in 2020, the BMJ study said.

In 2021, when the first COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out, there were roughly 1.25 million excess deaths.

Then, in 2022, when countries lifted most COVID-19 related measures, more than 808,000 excess deaths were reported, according to preliminary estimates.

“Excess mortality has remained high in the Western world for three consecutive years, despite the implementation of containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines,” the study authors in Netherlands concluded.

“This is unprecedented and raises serious concerns,” they said, adding that governments and policymakers “need to thoroughly investigate underlying causes of persistent excess mortality and evaluate their health crises policies.”