India’s excess deaths during the pandemic could be 10 times the official Covid-19 toll, likely making it modern India’s worst human tragedy, according to the most comprehensive research yet. Most experts believe India’s official toll of more than 414,000 dead is a vast undercount, but the government has dismissed those concerns as exaggerated and misleading. It said an accurate figure may “prove elusive” but the true death toll “is likely to be an order of magnitude greater than the official count”. It said the count could have missed deaths that occurred in overwhelmed hospitals or while health care was disrupted, particularly during the devastating virus surge earlier this year. “True deaths are likely to be in the several millions not hundreds of thousands, making this arguably India’s worst human tragedy since partition and independence,” the report said.

Source: Irish Independent July 20, 2021 12:22 UTC