A new study explains that the SARS-Cov-2 virus pandemic has caused more than four million deaths, far exceeding official figures. This will be India’s worst human tragedy since the country’s independence.
To date, more than 414,000 coronavirus deaths have been officially reported in India. The country is one of the few most important economies in the world that does not estimate excess mortality during a pandemic.
Researchers at the US Center for Global Development used three different data sources to estimate India’s total excess mortality during the pandemic prior to June 21. They extrapolated death data from seven states, representing half of India’s population. India conducts a sort of annual census of deaths, but only publishes figures until 2019.
Second, the experts applied international estimates of age-specific death rates from infections – the number of people who die from the virus – to data from two nationwide antibody tests, also called serological tests.
Third, researchers looked at 868,000 people in 177,000 households to see if any family members had died in the past four months.
Ultimately, scientists found that excess deaths were estimated at 3.4-4.7 million – about 10 times the official number of COVID-19 deaths in the country.
This is significantly higher than other estimates by epidemiologists who believed that excess mortality in India was five to seven times higher. Not all of these deaths were caused by COVID-19, and it would be difficult to estimate the actual number of deaths from the disease, said Arvind Subramanian, India’s former chief economic adviser and one of the study’s authors.
Scientists say the first wave of last year turned out to be more deadly than commonly believed. Mortality turned out to be moderate, because it is “scattered in time and space.” One of the conclusions of the work would be that “India was no exception” and had “mortality rates no different from countries of comparable size and infection.”
The researchers also add that “the most critical finding, regardless of sources and estimates,” was that the actual deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic “were likely much larger than the official estimate.” “The actual deaths are probably in the millions, not hundreds of thousands, making this perhaps the worst human tragedy in India since the country’s independence,” he concluded.
