COVID: Do we know the real death toll?

There has long been a debate over how COVID-19-related deaths are recorded. The Johns Hopkins University in the United States, which is widely accepted as a reputable source, puts the global death toll at more than 5.8 million people. Some COVID-deniers insist that this number is exaggerated but they offer no scientific evidence to substantiate their claims. The United Kingdom-based science writer, David Adam, argues in an article he wrote for the British weekly scientific journal Nature that the actual death toll from COVID-19 is much higher than the official figure. The article has reopened the debate on how deaths are recorded differently across the world, and what the best way might be to accurately calculate deaths attributed to COVID-19. Adam argues that records of excess mortality — a standard that requires a comparison of all deaths recorded with those expected to occur — show that many more people than the numbers reported and recorded have died in the pandemic.