There have been 7m-13m excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic
The rich world suffered relatively badly, but most of the dying has been elsewhere
OFFICIAL FIGURES say there have been 55,000 covid deaths in South Africa since March 27th last year. That puts the country’s death rate at 92.7 per 100,000 people, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also a significant underestimate—as, it seems safe to infer, are all the other African data on the disease.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “Counting the dead”
From the May 15th 2021 edition
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An unrestrained Israel is reshaping the Middle East
Its quest for hegemony will strain domestic cohesion and foreign alliances
Dreams of improving the human race are no longer science fiction
But the “enhancement” industry is still hobbled by out-of-date regulation
If it comes to a stand-off, Europe has leverage over America
But pulling some of those levers would be so damaging as to make them unusable
Syria has got rid of Bashar al-Assad, but not sectarian tensions
Its new rulers seem torn between reassuring minorities and appeasing their jihadist base
Syria’s economy, still strangled by sanctions, is on its knees
It will not improve until they are lifted