WHO and the government of India locked horns as WHO now reports 47.4 lakh Indian COVID deaths, nearly 10 times the official count.
WHO reports that over 90% of COVID deaths in India went unreported
The World Health Organisation said on Thursday that over 90% of COVID deaths in India went unreported causing the government of India to sharply rebuke that claim. The WHO report said that almost half of the COVID deaths that until now had not been counted were in India and claimed that COVID could have killed as many as 47.4 lakh people in India in 2020 and 2021, either directly due to infection or through its indirect impact. In fact, for India, the WHO said about 8.3 lakh deaths are estimated to have happened in 2020 itself.
Shockingly, the number disputed by India is nearly ten times the country’s official COVID death toll of 4.81 lakh at the end of 2021. WHO states that an estimated 1.5 crore people are likely to have succumbed to the direct or indirect impact of the disease globally during the first two years of the pandemic — instead of the 54 lakh that have been registered officially by countries individually.
The WHO disclosed this just two days after India released its annual data for the registration of births and deaths for the year 2020, recorded in its civil registration system (CRS), which showed about 4.75 lakh more deaths than in previous years, consistent with the trend of rising registrations being seen over the last few years. The CRS does not record cause-specific mortality.
The Government has repeatedly objected to the process and methodology adopted by the WHO to calculate the excess deaths and had sent at least ten letters to the global organization in this regard. On Thursday, the Government said in a statement, “WHO has released the excess mortality estimates without adequately addressing India’s concerns.”
According to WHO, nearly 84 percent of the total number of excess deaths happened in South East Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
The high-income countries account for 15 percent of these deaths, upper-middle-income countries 28 percent, lower middle-income countries 53 percent, and low-income countries 4 percent, as per the report.
India alone accounted for a third of the total numbers, according to WHO. Among other countries in the region, Pakistan accounted for 1.54 percent (230,440) of excess deaths, Bangladesh 0.9 percent (140,765), and Myanmar 0.29 percent (44,187). Countries such as Sri Lanka (-8,833) and China (-52,063) reported a negative total, meaning fewer people died there during the pandemic years than earlier.
According to WHO, the deaths linked indirectly to COVID are those that transpired due to circumstances for which people were unable to access treatment because the health systems were overburdened by the pandemic. It also accounts for fewer deaths due to road accidents, etc., when lockdowns were in place.
“These sobering data not only point to the impact of the pandemic but also to the need for all countries to invest in more resilient health systems that can sustain essential health services during crises, including stronger health information systems,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
The WHO states in its report that the “estimates may not be regarded as the national statistics officially produced by India due to differences arising from the data and methods used by WHO”.
Indian Health Ministry Reacts
The Health Ministry reacted by saying: “Despite communicating this data to WHO for supporting their publication, WHO for reasons best known to them conveniently chose to ignore the available data submitted by India and published the excess mortality estimates for which the methodology, source of data, and the outcomes have been consistently questioned by India.”
Sources in the Ministry questioned why their technical experts were not allowed to verify the data. “How can a member state-driven organization collect data from other sources, even when government data is available? Why were only 17 states selected? Why did the estimated number of deaths keep jumping from 13 lakh to 33 lakh to 63 lakh and then 47 lakh?” sources said.
“Did they collect data over a time period or model the monthly excess mortality based on data from an instance? For example, if mortality from Kerala or Maharashtra is extrapolated for the whole country, it would be wrong because those two states saw high mortality throughout the year. Or, if data from the peak of the second wave is extrapolated for the entire country over the two years, it will give an unusually high number,” sources said.
The Government Should Not Be Suprised or in Denial
However, one saw the terrible oxygen, no medicine, and no hospital beds crisis in Delhi, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Bengaluru were all hit hard and it is strange to mention only two states. The dead bodies of lives who succumbed to COVID floating in the Ganga still haunt the memories of millions of India. In fact, reporters were arrested in Uttar Pradesh for reporting “No oxygen!” such was the dilemma.
Questions arise as to why are the people or the government shocked at these huge numbers. They seem to have forgotten how overwhelming the situation was where they could not get medical attention, many died at home or on the streets, and there was a definite lack of doctors, the medical staff were overworked, serving tirelessly day and night, and many volunteers rose to help out of their own accord.
Indians have forgotten the horror of no oxygen, no beds terrible cries during the second wave. There were desperate hashtags #IndiaNeedsOxygen and Youth Congress leaders had got heavily involved in helping patients to get oxygen, and hospital beds during that trying time. Funeral pyres were burning while election campaigns were churning. In some cities, there was no place to cremate or bury the dead as the bodies were piling up. A lot of Indians lost someone they knew during the second wave and even celebrities got it despite distancing, so definitely, the second wave took far more lives than the government records. So these numbers should not shock anyone, the second wave was deathly.