COVID-19 Excess Mortality Study Retracted Over Misinformation in Its Discussion
Learn why BMJ Public Health withdrew a COVID-19 study that counted millions of excess deaths but could not establish their causes.
A study published in BMJ Public Health in June 2024 reported over 3 million excess deaths across 47 countries from 2020 to 2022. The study, titled "Excess mortality across countries in the Western World since the COVID-19 pandemic," used all-cause mortality data available through Our World in Data for the Western world. Researchers calculated 3,098,456 excess deaths using a model based on mortality records collected between 2015 and 2019.
The highest annual total came in 2021, with about 1.26 million excess deaths. The authors discussed COVID-19 infections, containment measures, and vaccination programs as possible contributors without determining how many deaths were linked to each factor. BMJ later retracted the study, stating that it had not clearly explained the limited nature of its analysis and that the discussion of causes of mortality was imbalanced, lacked rigor, and included misinformation.
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