India's excess deaths during the pandemic could be a staggering 10 times the official COVID-19 toll, likely making it modern India's worst human tragedy, according to the most comprehensive research yet on the ravages of the virus in the South Asian country. 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." (Unity Health Toronto)Still, Jha said he agreed that India's death toll is much greater than 400,000, which he said would mean the country had a death rate about one-eighth of the death rate in the United States. "No one really seriously believes that the Indian death rates from the infection are so low." Over the last few months, some Indian states have increased their COVID-19 death toll after finding thousands of previously unreported cases, raising concerns that many more fatalities were not officially recorded.

Source: CBC News July 20, 2021 18:00 UTC