Coronapod: COVID death toll is likely millions more than official counts

Nature Podcast

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News, Science, Technology

4.5 • 893 Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

As of January 2022, the WHO reports that 5.5 million people have lost their lives to the pandemic. However, many research groups suggests that this number is likely to be a significant underestimate, although it is hard to be certain as counting mortality across the world is an exceptionally difficult task. In this episode of Coronapod we ask why, and delve into the range of approaches scientists are taking to try to get to the bottom of the sticky problem - from excess death counts, to machine learning and even satellite imagery.News Feature: The pandemic’s true death toll: millions more than official countsSubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine you, you in a nice comfy seat, with your hands behind your head, taking in the views,
0:09.7	instead of taking on the road, maybe even taking a nap. That's the bliss of getting where you need to go
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0:26.5	Feel good travel.
0:30.9	The future is unpredictable at times.
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0:54.4	The Open University, find out more. Ain't nobody.
0:58.3	The Open University, the future is open.
1:04.0	Welcome to Corona Pod.
1:10.7	In this show, we're going to bring you nature's take on the latest COVID-19 developments.
1:15.8	And we'll be speaking to experts around the world about research during the pandemic.
1:23.9	We're entering a new era now. We have new COVID strategies. There's some new unknowns and we've got a vaccine.
1:30.0	Hello and welcome to Corona Pod.
1:34.7	I'm Noah Baker, and joining me this week is veteran reporter and author David Adam.
1:35.4	David, how are you?
1:36.5	Hello, well, thanks.
1:40.7	So this is the first Corona Pod of the year, and we've had a little bit of a break.
1:44.9	And as often happens over the holiday period, we've done a little bit of reflecting. And we're going to start with a story which is, I suppose, a kind of a somber
	...

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