4.7 Million Excess COVID Deaths In India, Claims WHO; Govt Questions Estimate Model

New Delhi: India recorded 4.7 million excess deaths between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021, according to new estimates on death toll of COVID-19 pandemic released by World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday.

Globally, the new estimate claimed around 14.9 million fatalities – more than three times the officially recorded figure.

WHO’s figures — of COVID-related deaths, directly or indirectly — are way more than India’s official death toll of around 5.2 lakh.

India strongly objected to the figures shared by WHO, questioning the mathematical model used to evaluate fatalities during the two-year period.

As per WHO’s data, during the period till August 2020 — when India was mostly under national lockdown starting from late March — there were about 62,000 fewer deaths. Deaths started climbing from September, with more than half of the excess deaths taking place during the second COVID wave during April-June 2021, WHO said.

“These sobering data not only point to the impact of the pandemic but also to the need for all countries to invest in more resilient health systems that can sustain essential health services during crises, including stronger health information systems,” WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated.

“WHO is committed to working with all countries to strengthen their health information systems to generate better data for better decisions and better outcomes,” he added.

WHO explained that excess mortality is calculated as the difference between number of deaths that have occurred and the number that would be expected in absence of pandemic based on data from earlier years.

As high as 84% of the excess deaths are from South-East Asia, Europe and the Americas, while 68% of excess deaths are concentrated in just 10 countries, WHO said.

Rejecting WHO’s estimate, the Central government stated that it objected to the ‘process, methodology and outcome’ of the ‘modelling exercise’.

“WHO has released the excess mortality estimates without adequately addressing India’s concerns,” a government statement said.

“India had also informed WHO that in view of the availability of authentic data published through Civil Registration System (CRS) by Registrar General of India (RGI), mathematical models should not be used for projecting excess mortality numbers for India.”