Assam saw 28,000 more deaths than normal in months when first wave of Covid-19 struck

Assam reported 77,845 deaths, or 55% more than the usual number, in four months of 2020 that coincided with the first wave of Covid-19 in the state, government data shows. The excess mortality was 30 times the official Covid-19 death toll in these months.

August, September and October accounted for over 75% of Assam’s total Covid-19 cases in 2020. Since there is a time lag between cases and deaths, November also saw a high number of Covid-19 deaths, despite the number of cases declining.

In 2018 and 2019, an average of 50,080 people had died in these four months, according to data from the Civil Registration System, a nationwide registry of all births and deaths maintained by the Office of the Registrar General of India.

Now, CRS data accessed by Scroll.in for the first time shows that in the same months in 2020, this number rose to 77,845 deaths, which means 27,765 excess deaths compared to the average for the same period in the previous two years.

The number of registered deaths tends to increase annually, largely due to better reporting. In 2018, around 66% of all deaths were registered in Assam, according to estimates of the Office of the Registrar General of India. Though this is much…

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