King's College London

The research, published in the Journal of Economic Growth, suggests the pandemic’s mortality rate was more than double the official figures issued across 134 countries, suggesting a widespread effort by political leaders to downplay the crisis.

The study, authored by economists Moses Shayo (King’s College London) and Ariel Karlinsky (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), compared officially reported COVID-19 deaths with excess all-cause mortality between 2020 and 2021.

While the studied nations collectively reported 5.08 million COVID fatalities, the true death toll is estimated by the academics at 12.47 million. They found that between 45-55 per cent of countries misreported their death counts, a discrepancy the study suggests cannot be explained by poor healthcare infrastructure, limited testing capacity, or varying medical standards.

Contrary to theories that governments might exaggerate crises to impose strict social controls or rally public support, the study found that the majority of leaders chose to downplay the impact of the pandemic.

The researchers found misreporting was heavily concentrated in countries lacking robust institutional constraints on the executive branch, such as a free press and an independent judiciary. Authoritarian regimes and nations with a communist legacy were significantly more likely to conceal the true number of dead.

Electoral pressures also played a significant role; countries holding elections during the pandemic were noticeably more prone to underreporting.

The researchers said: “Our evidence shows that manipulation was remarkably widespread and large in magnitude. Within the 62 countries in our data that underreported COVID mortality, the average underreporting was equivalent to 14.5 per cent of expected deaths.

“However, information manipulation varied significantly across countries. Its extent is best explained by the constraints governments face: both institutional and audience’s sophistica­tion. In countries where formal and informal checks and balances are weak, executives tend to act as ‘informational autocrats’”.