World Health Organisation (WHO) has released a report stating that the Covid-19 deaths in India are much more than 4.7 million, which the official government records show. The WHO report claims that the fatalities in India due to Covid-19 are nearly 10 times higher than the official records. However, the Indian government has strongly declined the WHO’s model for calculating the number of Covid deaths, calling it a flaw in methodology.
WHO released the report of Covid-19 deaths in the country from January 2020 to December 2021 on Thursday which states that India is hiding the real figures. According to the report, the country has almost a third of Covid deaths globally.
World Mortality Dataset calls India’s data fallacious and devious
World Mortality Dataset is a global repository that provides updated data on deaths from all causes. The advisory group was set up by WHO to record the deaths caused by Covid-19 globally from 2020 to 2021.
Researchers from the advisory group November 2020 asked the Indian authorities to provide information about the Covid-19 deaths in the country. But India’s main statistical office strongly refused to give information to the global repository stating that ‘the numbers are not available.’
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WHO claims that India in its official report showed 4,81,000 Covid-19 deaths but the figure is totally removed from the reality. The report states that India is one of the 20 countries (representing almost half of the global population) that account for more than 80% of the estimated global excess mortality for this time. Almost half of the deaths that until now had not been counted globally were in India.
India has consistently discarded scathing independent modelling estimates, which many contradict the government’s triumphalist narrative about fighting Covid. Authorities have labelled them “fallacious, ill-informed, and devious in nature,” claiming that the techniques and sample sizes were inaccurate.
Excess Mortality Rate
In its report WHO said, excess mortality is calculated as the difference between the number of deaths that have occurred and the number that would be expected in the absence of the pandemic based on data from earlier years.
Excess mortality includes deaths associated with Covid-19 directly (due to the disease) or indirectly (due to the pandemic’s impact on health systems and society). Deaths linked indirectly to Covid-19 are attributable to other health conditions for which people were unable to access prevention and treatment because health systems were overburdened by the pandemic, the report said.
India’s reaction to WHO’s report
A few minutes after WHO released the report, India called the organization’s methodology false and inaccurate. These sobering data not only point to the impact of the pandemic but also to the need for all countries to invest in more resilient health systems that can sustain essential health services during crises, including stronger health information systems, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. He further said that WHO is committed to working with all countries to strengthen their health information systems to generate better data for better decisions and better outcomes.
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Why countries were not providing the accurate Covid-19 death numbers to WHO?
During the pandemic, many countries struggled to provide accurate death figures. This can be because victims were not tested for the infection, and death registration was inconsistent and sluggish. Even in many developed countries, data on all-cause fatalities is published with a long delay.
India lags behind countries like the United States and Russia in terms of complete and timely death registration. According to Mr Karlinsky, death data in China – the only country with a population equivalent to India – has been a little perplexing, but authorities there have given annual statistics on all-cause fatalities for 2020 and 2021. Despite having allegedly good registration, Pakistan, like India, did not provide any data.
Why WHO is asking for data from the government?
However, experts claim that India also refuses to release basic pandemic statistics, including case counts, hospitalizations, and fatalities subdivided by age, gender, and vaccination status. It’s impossible to tell whether a successful immunization campaign is actually reducing deaths.
What should India do to get accurate Covid-19 numbers?
One way India could get a better handle on the number of people who died of Covid is to include a simple question in the next census: Has there been a death in your home since January 1, 2020? If so, please provide the deceased’s age, gender, and date of death. Dr. Jha states, this would provide a direct estimate of excess mortality during the pandemic.
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