Skip to main content

India's actual Covid death rate about 2500 per million, third highest in world: Study

There is now well-researched proof, if it can be called that, indicating that the Government of India may have fudged data to show lower Covid death rate. A new paper, published in “Science”, has said that while officially the Government of India’s Covid-related death estimates as of January 1, 2022 – 345 per million population – are one-seventh of the US death rate, the actual analysis of crude death rate in India suggests, this may be a gross underestimation. 
In fact, massive “misclassification of deaths” by showing Covid deaths as non-Covid, suggest the paper, “Covid mortality in India: National survey data and health facility deaths”, authored 11 scholars, led by Prabhat Jha of the University of Toronto, Canada, and consisting of an Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) faculty Chinmay Tumbe. 
The authors of the paper estimate that India’s actual Covid-related deaths were in the range of about 2,300 to 2,500 per million, or approximately 6- to 7-fold the officially reported rate on September 1, 2021. “This would put India’s death rate per million population just below the range reported in Brazil (2800/million) or Colombia (2500/million), where registration of deaths is far more complete”, the authors say, adding, “The actual excess deaths in the facilities may be larger as the Government of India has yet to release these data from June 2021 onward”.
Adopting a complex methodology, based on “mortality reported in a nationally representative telephone survey conducted by CVoter” (which the authors qualify “established, independent, private polling agency”, data sources from public hospitals and smaller facilities, and the Census of India’s Civil Registration System (CSR), the authors say, “The majority of Covid deaths India experienced throughout the pandemic occurred from April 1 to July 1, 2021 (2.7 million).”
Covid-related deaths across States
In fact, according to them, “The crude death rate … more than doubled in 2021 compared to 2019… Much of this excess occurred in April-May 2021 (0.45 million or 71%), reaching a 120% increase over earlier year totals. The increase in deaths in the first viral wave was predominantly urban, but deaths in the second wave affected both urban and rural facilities.”
India’s death rate per million was just below the range reported in Brazil (2800/million) or Colombia (2500/million)
The authors continue, compared to 2018-19 totals, the increase in all-cause deaths in April-May 2021 varied across states, with Gujarat reporting a 230% increase – the highest among ten States for which data were available and analysed – and Kerala the lowest, having a 37% increase. They add, “Total excess all-cause deaths were 1.25 million for the ten States that reported about half of national official Covid deaths.”
Underlining that the “actual excess deaths in the facilities may be larger as the Government of India has yet to release these data from June 2021 onward”, the authors say, “Both the 2020 and 2021 viral waves were characterized by widespread (and, for 2021, mostly uncontrolled) multigenerational transmission of the virus within households, with high levels of antibodies detected.”
The authors state, “India’s significantly higher Covid death rate in 2021 compared to the lower than expected death rate in 2020 requires further research. The spread of infection to rural areas in 2021 is one factor, but there might also be differences in the pathogenicity between the original virus (Wuhan) in 2020 and the mix of alpha and delta variants accounting for most of the 2021 viral wave.”
They add, “Similarly, tracking death rates will be essential to understanding the effects of the Omicron wave currently underway in India, or future viral variants.”

Comments

TRENDING

Patriot, Link: How Soviet imbroglio post-1968 crucially influenced alternative media platforms

Adatata Narayanan, Aruna Asaf Ali Alternative media, as we know it today in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), didn't exist in the form it does today during or around the time I joined formal journalism at Link Newsweekly as a sub-editor in January 1979. However, Link, and its sister publication Patriot, a daily—both published from Delhi—were known to have provided what could be called an alternative media platform at a time when major Delhi-based dailies were controlled by media barons.

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's all hype with an eye on UP polls, asserts keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

Breaking news? Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

Morari Bapu echoes misleading figures to support the BJP's anti-conversion agenda

A senior Gujarat activist phoned me today to inform me that the well-known storyteller on Lord Ram, Morari Bapu, has made an "unsubstantiated" and "preposterous" statement in Songadh town, located in the tribal-dominated Tapi district. He claimed that while the Gujarat government wants the Bhagavad Gita to be taught in schools, the "problem is" that 75% of government teachers "are Christians who do not let this happen" and are “involved in religious conversions.”

An untold story? Still elusive: Gujarati language studies on social history of Gujarat's caste and class evolution

This is a follow-up to my earlier blog , where I mentioned that veteran scholar Prof. Ghanshyam Shah has just completed a book for publication on a topic no academic seems to have dealt with—caste and class relations in Gujarat’s social history. He forwarded me a chapter of the book, published as an "Economic & Political Weekly" article last year, which deals with the 2015 Patidar agitation in the context of how this now-powerful caste originated in the Middle Ages and how it has evolved in the post-independence era.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.

Justifying social divisions? 'Dogs too have caste system like we humans, it's natural'

I have never had any pets, nor am I very comfortable with them. Frankly, I don't know how to play with a pet dog. I just sit quietly whenever I visit someone and see their pet dog trying to lick my feet. While I am told not to worry, I still choose to be a little careful, avoiding touching the pet.

New York-based digital company traces Modi's meteoric rise to global Hindutva ecosystem over several decades

A recent document, released by the Polis Project Inc.—a New York-based digital magazine and hybrid research and journalism organization—even as seeking to highlight the alleged rise of authoritarianism in India, has sought to trace Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meteoric rise since 2014 to the ever-expanding global Hindutva ecosystem over the last several decades.

What's wrong with those seeking to promote Sanskrit? An ex-Hindi professor has the answer

Ajay Tiwari  I have always wondered why certain elite sections are so fascinated by Sanskrit, to the extent of even practicing speaking a language that, for all practical purposes, isn’t alive. During my Times of India stint in Gandhinagar, the Gujarat state capital, I personally witnessed an IAS bureaucrat, Bhagyesh Jha, trying to converse with a friend in Sanskrit.