Are WHO's figures on COVID-19 excess mortality in India correct? скачать в хорошем качестве

Are WHO's figures on COVID-19 excess mortality in India correct?

It seems that the government of India and the World Health Organisation are at loggerheads over COVID-19 death during the two years of 2020 and 2021. On May 5, 2022, the WHO published a report detailing the excess death from COVID-19 worldwide. This report noted that COVID-19 had claimed 15 million lives in these two years. The report also noted that over 80% of the 15 million excess deaths happened in just 10 countries of which India had the largest share. So why are the Indian government and the WHO agreeing to disagree with each other? The WHO report claims that India’s death toll was 10 times what the Indian government has acknowledged as COVID-19 deaths. Officially, India maintains that only about half a million of its citizens died of COVID-19 in these two years. But the WHO reports that use simulations and models claim that the deaths in India could be as high as 4.74 million. Does this mean one out of every three deaths reported globally came from India? There have been studies done in the past, especially after the second wave in 2021 where models were used to calculate the COVID-19 deaths in India. One such modelling study was done together by the Centre for Global Health Research, IIM Ahmedabad, C-Voter, Development Data Lab and Dartmouth College found that the number of dead during the first and the second wave may have been 6-7 times higher than what the government was reporting. As many as 3.2 million people may have succumbed to the pandemic between June 2020 and July 2021, the study reported. This was in stark contrast to the government released figure of .419,000 deaths. The reason for such a huge mismatch, the authors of the study noted "because of incomplete certification of COVID deaths and misattribution to chronic diseases and because most deaths occur in rural areas, often without medical attention". Source: Indiaspend.com According to the WHO’s calculations, 8.3 lakh Indians died of Covid-19 in 2020, against the official toll of 1.49 lakh. Total deaths reported in 2020 were 81.2 lakh. The overall data coincides with trends observed over the last decade. But if Covid-19 deaths were 8.3 lakh then non-Covid deaths in 2020 were only 73 lakh. India’s total death toll has never been below 80 lakh since 2007. The government also claims that death registration in India has been growing since 2017. In 2017 about 79 per cent of the total deaths were registered in India which according to the government went up to 99.5 per cent in 2020. While the WHO has not budged from its position on the report of the excess death, the government of India has come out with a strong rebuttal. “India strongly objects to the use of mathematical models for projecting excess mortality estimates in view of the availability of authentic data,” a statement by the government said. “Despite India’s objection to the process, methodology and outcome of this modelling exercise, WHO has released the excess mortality estimates without adequately addressing India’s concerns,” it added. “India had also informed WHO that in view of the availability of authentic data published through Civil Registration System (CRS) by the Registrar General of India, mathematical models should not be used for projecting excess mortality numbers for India,” it noted.