On Mar. 10, 2022, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) reported that more than three times as many people may have died worldwide as a result of the pandemic than official COVID-19 death records suggested, according to an analysis published in The Lancet.

While the official COVID-19 death toll was 5.9 million between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2021, the new study estimates 18.2 million excess deaths occurred over the same period, suggesting the full impact of the pandemic may have been far greater.