At least 6-8 million people may have died due to the COVID-19 pandemic so far versus the World Health Organization's official toll of around 3.4 million, a WHO official said on Friday.
"This number would truly be two to three times higher. So I think safely about 6 to 8 million deaths could be an estimate on a cautionary note," said Samira Asma, WHO's Assistant Director-General in its data and analytics division at a virtual press briefing.
In 2020, it found there had been at least three million excess deaths due directly or indirectly to COVID-19, while the official number of coronavirus deaths was 1.8 million at the end of the year.
