India’s deaths during pandemic 10 times official toll: Study

New Delhi (dpa), 20 July, 2021 - The number of excess deaths in India during the coronavirus pandemic could be 10 times higher than the official toll from the disease, research published on Tuesday said.

The study by the US-based Center for Global Development estimates that between 3 million and 4.9 million more people died than would be expected between January 2020 and June 2021.

Excess deaths is defined as the difference between recorded number of deaths and expected number of deaths in the same time period. It is a more accurate measure than confirmed Covid-19 deaths alone, according to WHO.
“India’s official death count as of end-June is 400,000. The reality is, of course, catastrophically worse,” the study said.

“True deaths are likely to be in several millions not hundreds of thousands, making this arguably India’s worst human tragedy since partition and independence,” it said. The 1947 partition which marked the independence of India and Pakistan from Britain led to killings of 1 million people in sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims. The study examined three different data sources - including extrapolating death registrations from seven states, where half of India’s population lives and applying international estimates of age-specific infection fatality rates to nationwide antibody tests.