US has undercounted Covid deaths, says Fauci

Washington: The United States, which has reported the world’s worst overall Covid-19 death toll, has "no doubt" been undercounting fatal cases, top pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci said Sunday.

The country has officially lost over 581,000 people to the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus -- but a University of Washington study released Thursday estimated deaths at more than 900,000.

"That’s a bit more than I would have thought the undercounting was," Fauci told NBC’s "Meet The Press." "But I think there’s no doubt... that we are and have been undercounting."

The United States has reported over 32.6 million cases since the virus was first identified at the end of 2019 in China. America was battered by a spike in cases and deaths after the end-of-year holidays, but since January new infections have come down as vaccination rates have jumped.