Why The Pandemic Could Change The Way We Record Deaths

An illegal roadside graveyard in northeastern Namibia. People in the townships surrounding Rundu, a town on the border to Angola, are too poor to afford a funeral plot at the municipal graveyard — and resorted to burying their dead next to a dusty gravel road just outside of the town.

Brigitte Weidlich / AFP via Getty Images

It’s hard to keep track of the dead.

And even the records we do have are not accurate.

As the world approaches the 1 million mark for COVID-19 fatalities, public health experts believe the actual toll – the recorded deaths plus the unrecorded deaths – is much higher.