Reports on excess Covid deaths relied on unvalidated methods: Government in Parliament

New Delhi, March 29

The government on Tuesday junked recent reports of excess Covid 19 deaths in India saying these reports mostly relied on unvalidated methodologies.

In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pawar said that as of 24th March 2022, states and UTs had reported 5,16,672 deaths due to Covid-19 in the country.

“As per the data available with World Health Organization, India has one of the lowest deaths per million (374 deaths per million population), much lower compared to similarly affected countries like the United States of America (2,920 deaths per million population), Brazil (3,092 deaths per million population), Russia (2,506 deaths per million population) and Mexico (2,498 deaths per million population),” the ministry said.

The government said that at times certain reports have speculated excess deaths higher than the official number of Covid-19 fatalities officially reported by India.

“These reports have mostly relied on unvalidated methodologies, or the data sources used to derive ‘estimates’ are not reliable. In most of these studies results have been obtained using mathematical modelling techniques from a limited sample of small sub-population subgroups which is extrapolated to the entire country,” Pawar said.

She said India has a robust Civil Registration System (CRS) and Sample Registration System (SRS) which predates the Covid-19 pandemic and covers all the States/UTs.

The registration of deaths in the country is done under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act (RBD Act, 1969) by functionaries appointed by the state governments.

A recent Lancet report concluded that although reported Covid-19 deaths between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021 totalled 5.94 million worldwide, an estimated 18.2 million people actually died with India accounting for the highest excess deaths.

The study estimated 4.1 million excess deaths in India over those reported, making up 22 per cent of the global excess deaths. India officially counted 4,81,000 deaths during the period.