Covid-19 deaths in India 7 times more than official figures: Research

Latest research based on nationally representative independent surveys and models found that the death toll from Covid-19 in India may have exceeded 32 lakh – around 7 times the official death toll of 4,83,463 reported by the government on January 8, 2022.

A research paper by Professor IIM-A Chinmay Tumbe and his co-author Paul Novosad, professor of economics at Dartmouth College, Hanover, USA showed that Covid-19 made up 29% of the total number of deaths between June 2020 and July 2021, which worked out at a figure of 32 lakh deaths, of which 27 lakh had occurred during the second wave of April-July 2021.

Researchers used a nationally representative independent survey of 140,000 adults and compared Covid mortality during the Covid-19 viral waves of 2020 and 2021 with expected all-cause mortality. Compared to pre-pandemic periods, all-cause mortality was 27% higher in 0.2 million health facilities and 26% higher in vital statistics deaths in 10 states. The two increases occurred mainly in 2021.

“The analyzes reveal that the cumulative deaths from Covid in India by September 2021 were 6 to 7 times higher than those officially reported,” the researchers noted in the article, published in the Science magazine on January 6.

Three orthogonal sources

Explaining the method of calculating excess deaths, the researchers used 3 orthogonal sources. This includes a representative CVoter survey which was contacted with over 100,000 households in 2020-2021. Second, the excessive number of deaths reported in health facilities through HMIS (Hospital Management Information System) and third, the total number of deaths from vital registration systems in 10 states.

“All three suggest that total mortality was 20-30% higher between June 1, 2020 and July 1, 2021 than it would have been based on death rates from previous years, suggesting around 2, 7 million more deaths than normal, ”noted Novosad explaining the results.

Multiple data sources and different analytical approaches all agree that there were over 2 million deaths from Covid in India up to the summer of 2021. “India alone represents a huge share of Covid deaths around the world. WHO should update its global figures taking this into account, ”noted Novosad.

Under reporting

In an interview with Activity area just before the Omicron variant appeared in November 2021, Tumbe had declared that India was one of the most affected countries in the world in terms of loss of livelihoods and mortality due to the Covid pandemic. 19. “Official data from India shows around 450,000 deaths. But we used a faulty death reporting matrix. The underreporting is true around the world, but our article shows how imperfect the reporting is in India, ”Tumbe said.

Based on estimates of 31-34 lakh deaths from the independent COVID Tracker survey, the national death rate from Covid-19 per million population ranges from 2,300 to 2,500. “That would place the death rate per million inhabitants in India just below the range reported in Brazil (2,800 / million) or Colombia (2,500 / million), where the registration of deaths is much more complete, ”the document said.

The research also examines the difference in the severity of infections during the first and second waves of 2020 and 2021, respectively. “The viral waves of 2020 and 2021 were characterized by widespread multigenerational (and, for 2021, mostly uncontrolled) transmission of the virus within households, with high levels of antibodies detected,” he said. looking for additional research to meaningfully examine India. Higher Covid death rate in 2021 compared to a lower than expected death rate in 2020.

Tumbe’s research also notes that tracking death rates would be key to understanding the effects of the Omicron wave, currently underway in India, or future viral variants. India reported 1,419,86 new cases on January 8 with a daily positivity rate of over 9%. The country has reported a total of 3,071 Omicron cases with 1,203 recoveries in 27 states.

“If our results are confirmed, this could require a substantial upward revision of the WHO estimates on cumulative global mortality from Covid, which as of January 1, 2022, stood at 5.4 million,” the research noted. .