Under-reporting of deaths limits our understanding of true burden of covid-19
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Charles Whittaker and colleagues argue that accurate mortality data are essential for a fair, just, and equitable response to pandemics and suggest how to obtain them
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Correctly accounting for deaths and their causes during acute emergencies carries important societal ramifications.
“Correctly accounting for deaths and their causes during acute emergencies carries important societal ramifications9–12.”
From Attributed causes of excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in a south Indian city (2023) · cites this paper as [12]
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“23 In this analysis, we consequently focused on fitting to all-cause excess mortality, which provides a more complete description of the pandemic.”
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- Authors
- Whittaker, C., Walker, P. G. T., Alhaffar, M., Hamlet, A., Djaafara, B. A., Ghani, A., Ferguson, N., Dahab, M., Checchi, F., & Watson, O. J.
- Affiliations
- Imperial College London (GB)
- London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (GB)
- Oxford University Clinical Research Unit Indonesia (ID)
- ORCID
- Venue
- BMJ
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2021-10-12
- Volume
- 375
- Pages
- n2239
- ISSN
- 1756-1833 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3206679903
- Cited by
- 122
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 10.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Licence
- Locations
- BMJ (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Medical Research Council (MR/R015600/1, MC_PC_19012)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Modeling and Simulation › COVID-19 epidemiological studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Data-Driven Disease Surveillance
- Social Sciences › Demography › Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, death registration, pandemic response, health equity
- MeSH terms
- Global Burden of Disease, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Humans, Disease Notification
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