[russellw]

It should be noted that Russia is by no means Robinson Crusoe when it comes to under reporting mortalities related to COVID. The data below is based on excess mortality data for each of the countries.

India is widely considered to have underestimated by at least 0.6M with even the most conservative estimates putting the real numbers at 1.2M rather than the 452k official number. Clearly, the current 1.32% CMR was never going to be correct given the massive outbreak earlier this year and even the 3.5% that 1.2M deaths gives might still be light.

The USA is probably light by close to 120k deaths given how some States have reported and that would move their CMR from 1.63% --> 1.957%.

We know Indonesia have under-reported and the conservative estimates put the real numbers at 445k rather than the 143k official number. That would move the CMR from an already poor 3.37% to more than 10% and some commentators think the numbers might be as high as 1M deaths.

We know Pakistan have under-reported and the conservative estimates put the real numbers at 300k rather than the 28k official number. That would move the CMR from a worse than average 2.23% to more than 20% although it's clear case numbers have been under-reported too.

Likewise with China. The official 4.6k figure, which we all know is fantasy, is at least 120k and maybe as high as 1M. The official CMR is already bad at 4.85% but there would also be lots of cases not reported given the official case numbers are less than the estimated mortalities!

Others to be at least suspected of seriously under-reporting mortalities and/or cases include: Bangladesh, Turkey, Mexico, Egypt, Iran, Iraq and most African countries.

Indeed, given that this data is based on the excess mortalities 2020 and 2021 YTD and the fact that countries like Australia have actually recorded an overall reduction in mortalities, the real numbers could be worse.

On that topic, our excess mortalities for that period are -3.5k or so, despite the 1,500 COVID deaths. It's perhaps an unintended consequence of the lockdowns but in simple terms:

- ~800 people didn't die from Influenza;
- ~200 people didn't die on our roads;
- ~ 2k people didn't die from other respiratory diseases; and
there were less heart attacks and strokes.