To calculate extra deaths, the FT has in contrast deaths from all causes within the weeks of a location’s outbreak in March and April 2020 to the common for a similar interval between 2015 and 2019. The whole of 122,000 quantities to a 50 per cent rise in total mortality relative to the historic common for the areas studied.

In all of the international locations analysed besides Denmark, extra deaths far outnumbered the official coronavirus death tolls. The accuracy of official death statistics from the virus is proscribed by how successfully a rustic is testing folks to verify instances. Some international locations, together with China, have retrospectively revised up their death tolls from the illness.