‘The toll was much higher’: Israeli study finds COVID deaths underreported

A new Israeli study by Hebrew University researchers Ariel Karlinsky and Professor Moses Shayo found that governments significantly underreported COVID-19 deaths during the first two years of the pandemic. Published in the Journal of Economic Growth, the study compared official figures with excess mortality estimates from 134 countries, revealing 12.47 million actual COVID deaths compared to 5.08 million officially reported. Karlinsky stated, "The toll of the COVID pandemic was much higher than officially reported and we show massive information manipulation by many governments around the world." The research indicated that countries with stronger institutional checks and balances generally showed less underreporting, while those with a communist legacy or holding elections saw more. India had the largest absolute discrepancy, reporting approximately 500,000 deaths against an estimated 4.5 million.