A discussion with Ariel Karlinksy of the WHO technical advisory group on Covid mortality estimates.

WHO, the World Health Organisation, recently came out with a staggering estimate of 14.9 million excess deaths associated with the Covid-19 pandemic through the end of 2021, severl fold greater than the official estimates from countries around the world. Where did that estimate come from? In this video, I sit down for a conversation with Ariel Karlinsky, one of the authors of that estimate and a central figure in the development of the methodology to achieve it. Ariel is co-author of the World Mortality Dataset (used by Our World in Data and many others) and a member of the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 mortality assessment.

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Intro/Outro music: "Do it again", by Enzo Orefice. Licensed via StoryBlocks https://www.storyblocks.com/audio/sto...

Thumbnail art by Gal Kabiri (https://www.artistandmerchant.com/) for World Mortality dataset

▬ Disclaimers ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

This video is for educational purposes only.

I have no conflicts of interest. I do not receive any compensation or support from any company making or developing Covid-19 vaccines or novel therapies. I have no stake, financial or otherwise, in Ivermectin. I made this video on my own time and with my own money and equipment, with no incentives or sponsorship (though you can buy me a coffee).

▬ Contents ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
00:00 Introduction and background
02:19 How did Ariel start working on Covid mortality?
06:45 How did he join the WHO technical advisory group?
08:39 Why is excess mortality the "gold standard" for understanding the human cost of Covid?
13:28 The WHO challenge of estimating excess deaths
16:54 Much of the world doesn't report deaths at all
25:10 Countries that changed their data reporting to hide Covid deaths
29:40 WHO report: expected versus observed deaths
35:10 The excellent (terrible) example of Peru
36:40 Why other countries should follow Peru's example
39:54 Where do we go from here? Mistakes of the UK ONS

▬ About this channel ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

I'm Greg Tucker-Kellogg, PhD, a biology professor in Singapore with a career spanning both biotechnology and academia. Videos on this educational channel cover some of my scientific and teaching interests in genomics, bioinformatics, and biochemistry, as well as topics in current scientific issues of public interest. Links to my professional profile are available in the "about" section of the channel.

▬ References ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
- WHO press release on excess deaths estimate https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2...
- Entry point for data access https://www.who.int/data/stories/glob...
- WHO Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 mortaliy https://www.who.int/data/technical-ad...
- Methods of excess death estimation (technical document in PDF from WHO technical advisory group https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/defaul...)
- preprint front page https://www.who.int/publications/i/it...
- preprint PDF (highly technical) https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/defaul...
- Karlinsky and Kobak paper on World Mortality Dataset https://elifesciences.org/articles/69336