Covid deaths much higher than official stats

John Burn-Murdoch of the FT has shared some telling new charts about the covid death rate.

The numbers are remarkable, and put to bed the idea that Covid-19 is akin to a bad flu season.

You can clearly see that in almost every country, spikes in mortality are *far* higher than what we see from flu etc (grey lines are historical death numbers) 

The picture is even more stark in the cities & regions hardest hit by outbreaks.

In Ecuador’s Guayas province, 245 Covid deaths have been reported to date, but all-cause mortality data show *more than 10,000* extra deaths since 1 March compared to the average in recent years.

In developing countries, the covid virus is causing a humanitarian disaster and also an economic one. Getting rid of lockdowns won't help.  People will still refuse to go shopping for luxuries, to travel. to eat in restaurants.  And death rates of 1 or 3 or 5% of the population won't be terribly conducive to high growth.  The only solution, till a vaccine is found, is to test, trace and isolate.  And many developing countries are too poor to do that.