Vaccination at the District Hospital of New Delhi, India on April 22, 2021. (Anindito Mukherjee/Getty Images)
- Official Indian reports claim that Covid-19 has caused more than 414,000 deaths.
- The country is the third highest country in the world after the United States and Brazil.
- It estimates that the additional death toll during the pandemic is between 3.4 million and 4.9 million.
According to a new study, India’s additional deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic may be as high as 4.9 million. The study provides further evidence that the number of deaths from the coronavirus may be millions more than official statistics.
The report, co-authored by Arvind Subramanian, the former chief economic adviser of India, at the Washington-based Global Development Center, includes the number of deaths due to various causes from the start of the pandemic to June 2021.
India officially reported more than 414,000 deaths from Covid-19, which is the world’s third-highest number of deaths after the United States and Brazil, but the study adds to the growing call from experts to require strict nationwide Audit of the death toll.
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According to official data, the number of infections increased sharply in April and May, mainly caused by the more contagious and dangerous Delta variant. India’s medical system was overwhelmed and caused at least 170,000 deaths in May alone. .
The report says:
Sadly, too many people may have died, millions instead of hundreds of thousands.
It estimates that the additional death toll during the pandemic is between 3.4 million and 4.9 million.
The report did not attribute all excess deaths to the pandemic.
It said: “We focus on all-cause mortality and estimate the excess mortality relative to the pre-pandemic baseline and adjust for seasonality.”
The Indian Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to Reuters email seeking comment.
Some experts say that the excess death toll is the best way to measure the actual number of Covid-19 deaths.
According to the New York Times, the most conservative death toll in India is estimated to be 600,000, and the worst-case scenario is several times this number. The government has rejected these figures.
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Health experts say that the low count is mainly due to the scarcity of resources in the vast hinterland where two-thirds of India’s population live, and many people die at home without being tested.
India reported that the number of daily infections fell from the peak in May, and Tuesday set the lowest daily number of new cases in four months of 300,093.
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also been criticized for the chaotic vaccination campaign, which many believe has contributed to the worsening of the second wave of infections.
So far, only over 8% of eligible adults in India have received the mandatory two doses of vaccine.
In July, the government injected an average of less than 4 million doses of vaccine a day, and on June 21, Modi announced that the country’s 950 million adults would be vaccinated for free, a record of 9.2 million doses.
