NEW DELHI – India’s coronavirus death toll is up to 10 times higher than the nearly 415,000 fatalities reported by authorities, likely making it the country’s worst humanitarian disaster since independence, said a United States research group today.
The Centre for Global Development study’s estimate is the highest yet for the carnage in the South Asian nation of 1.3 billion people, which is emerging from a devastating surge partly fuelled by the Delta variant in April and May.
The study, which analysed data from the start of the pandemic to last month, suggested that between 3.4 million and 4.7 million people have died from the virus.
“True deaths are likely to be in the several millions, not hundreds of thousands, making this arguably India’s worst human tragedy since partition and independence,” said the researchers.
India’s official death toll of just over 414,000 is the world’s third-highest after the United States (609,000) and Brazil (542,000).
Experts have cast doubt on India’s toll for months, blaming the stressed health service rather than deliberate misinformation.
Several Indian states have revised their virus tolls in recent weeks, adding thousands of “backlogged” deaths.
The report is based on estimating “excess mortality”, the number of extra people who died compared with pre-crisis figures.
The authors, who include Arvind Subramanian, a former chief government economic adviser, did this partly by analysing death registrations in some states, as well as a recurring national economic study.
The research team, which also includes a Harvard University expert, acknowledged that estimating mortality with statistical confidence is difficult.
“(But) all estimates suggest that the death toll from the pandemic is likely to be an order of magnitude greater than the official count.”
‘Speculative’
Christophe Guilmoto, a specialist in Indian demography at France’s Research Institute for Development, this month estimated that the death toll was nearer 2.2 million by late May.
India’s death rate per million is nearly half the world average, and Guilmoto said “such a low figure contradicts the apparent severity of a crisis that has struck most Indian families across the country”.
His team concluded that only one coronavirus death in seven is recorded.
A model by the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimated that the Covid-19 toll could be more than 1.25 million.
India’s Health Ministry last month slammed The Economist magazine for publishing a report that said excess deaths are between five and seven times higher than the official toll, calling it “speculative” and “misinformed”.
A World Health Organisation report in May said up to three times more people died around the globe during the pandemic – from coronavirus or other causes – than indicated by official statistics. – AFP, July 20, 2021
