Speculative and misinformed: Govt rejects report claiming Covid-19 death toll in India much higher
Covid deaths between January 2020 and December 2021 were around eight times higher than reported. It said the Covid mortality rate among Indian states is not the highest in the world, because of India's large population, but the country accounted for around 22·3% of global excess deaths as of December 31, 2021.
Although reported deaths in that period totalled 5·94 million worldwide, The Lancet paper estimates that 18·2 million people died worldwide because of the pandemic, as measured by excess mortality, over that period.
This is around three times higher than previously estimated. The documented deaths due to Covid in India over that period stood at around 4,89,000, the journal says in the paper “Estimating excess mortality due to the Covid-19 pandemic: a systematic analysis of Covid-19-related mortality, 2020-21".
Excess mortality measures the additional deaths in a given time compared to the number usually expected and is not dependent on how Covid-19 deaths are recorded.
United States
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Cases: 46 252 513
Deaths: 750 423
Recovered: 0
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India
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Cases: 34 321 025
Deaths: 459 652
Recovered: 0
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Brazil
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Cases: 21 835 785
Deaths: 608 235
Recovered: 0
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United Kingdom
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Cases: 9 215 683
Deaths: 141 607
Recovered: 0
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Russia
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Cases: 8 494 589
Deaths: 237 619
Recovered: 0
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